Re: Book Review: Undesigning the Bath

<DCollins@p...> wrote:
> I'm reading through this, and I'm looking for something - just one
> example - of what the book commits to as being better than how 
> they're designed today. ...So, I'd be interested in hearing an 
> explicit example of a way in which baths are to be designed with 
> different principles than we do everything else. 

I should have said in my original post that the book's examples of 
baths are not what most of us probably experience every day -- a tub 
or shower in a little room that also has a sink and a toilet in it. 
The Western family bathroom. His examples have to do with places set 
aside for a "bathing experience." Japanese baths. Islamic hammams. 
Baths dug in natural hot springs. And so on. 

It's not that these are necessarily impractical or impossible for 
Western homes (which is part of the point). The Japanese demonstrate 
this and so do the Finns, though of course we're talking about very 
different cultural traditions of bathing. And here even the places 
that are set aside for our closest equivalent to ritual bathing -- 
hot tubs, spas, hotel rooms with huge tubs -- tend to be more like 
overgrown porcelain tubs with surrounding tile than um, really 
soulful settings. 

So yeah. If you were picturing your own bathroom, it's no wonder my 
review had you scratching your head. 

Specific examples.... The book is full of things like pitted concrete 
floors, porous surfaces, natural backdrops, materials that have 
pleasing smells when wet. 

"Unfinished wood is admittedly time-consuming to maintain. Yet it has 
a lovely aroma, feels good to the hand and body, and when wet reveals 
a glorious grain structure. From a utilitarian point of view, wood 
can be repaired piece by piece as needed, has low thermal 
conductivity -- so it's never hot to the touch yet has excellent heat 
retention -- and provides moderate sound insulation." 

So in choosing materials there are always trade-offs. Sometimes, the 
author suggests, the sensual qualities of a material trump ease of 
maintenance. 

Some images pulled from the net:
http://marrakech-info.com/baoussala/images/hammam%20sdb.jpg
http://www.grupoalandalus.com/fotosgranada/ham-gr5.jpg
http://www.femail.com.au/img/cs_steam.gif
http://www.waikopou.co.nz/images/spa.jpg

You get the idea. Hope that helps. 

- Marc




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