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Japanese Bathrooms are Designed Really Differently From Western Ones

Here's 13 design differences

By Rain Noe - July 3, 2015

in Interior/Exhibition Design

As an American living in Japan for a year, I expected the apartments to be smaller. What I didn't expect were the functional design differences in living styles. Three things in particular took some getting used to: 1) Having to constantly remember to turn the apartment's gas off when not in use (due to earthquakes), 2) washing machines but no dryers (due to expensive electricity), and 3) the bathroom designs (due to different views on ablutions and elimination).

The bathroom in my apartment was like everyone else's there: Completely waterproof, like it was in an RV. As space-tight as the apartment was, the toilet was off in its own little room and had a sink built into the top of it, like they have in American jails. The sink faucet was on a pivot and also served as the bathtub faucet. And on and on.

To get a good sense of how Japan's distinct view of bathrooms influences their design, watch this little girl run down the design features:

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Jim Morgan

9 years ago

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This is one swish Japanese bathroom, myself and none of my friends in rural Japan have anything like this! The biggest design issues I see, particularly in older wet rooms, is that they are terrible for mould, especially round\under the bath - I would guess due to inadequate ventilation.

The toilet/sink combination has a lot of promise, but I know is underused here by my friends because there is no where to put your soap! If you stick it on a shelf, you drip everywhere! (Damn conditioning to wet our hands before getting soap...). Design opportunity perhaps?

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ray luke

9 years ago

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Some of the design inclusions looks pretty cool. They probably use less water than westerners.

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