Word: kira
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...study just completed by Cornell University. And the worst offender of all is that old unmentionable, the toilet. Not only has it not changed basically since plumbing began to move indoors, but it remains "the most ill-suited fixture ever designed." The most natural position, Architecture Professor Alexander Kira and his four assistants discovered after exhaustive research, is squatting. "We may think it is outrageous to squat," says Kira, "but most of the world squats. It is more natural and easier on the body...
...Kira's radical proposal is more down to earth: the seat should be just 9 inches high v. about 16 inches for the conventional toilet. For better hygiene, he advocates washing jets fore and aft. The seat itself would be wider, padded, and come with built-in push-up bars, paper holder and electric flush controls. And while on the subject, Kira thinks that the urinal could stand more study. Working with everything from splash diagrams to trajectory charts, the study group proposes a cavern-shaped urinal, suggests that it might pull down from the wall above...
...with Faucets. The Cornell project got underway when Kira discovered that "kitchens have been researched to death; someone does a study every year. But the bathroom has been left alone." Starting from scratch, the Cornell researchers conducted a questionnaire survey of 1,000 Los Angeles families, found that "once people got talking about bathrooms, they couldn't stop...
...eyed bather to adjust water temperature without alternately scalding or freezing himself. To avoid slipping while balancing on one leg, a continuous wraparound safety bar is needed. "One can get a car washed automatically in five minutes, while it still takes us 15 minutes to wash ourselves by hand," Kira notes wryly, and predicts that sweeping technological changes are due in personal hygiene...
...toothpicks to hair dryers and whirlpool agitators. More mechanized conveniences are surely coming. More important, he hopes that his report has finally lifted the "veil of embarrassment," and that the bathroom can be at last openly examined. "Until the bathroom is conceived of and produced as an entity," Kira maintains, "no significant progress can be made...