'Toilet revolution' moving forward in Hangzhou

Since their first success, Zhao and his team have installed over 40 Lansing Public Toilets throughout Zhejiang province, including Hangzhou, Ningbo, Shaoxing and Jinghua. As Lansing gained more popularity, other tourist destinations reached out for collaboration. Their projects now extend as far as Urumqi in the Xinjiang autonomous region and Yingxiu in Sichuan province. Zhao emphasizes that Lansing is not just about designing and building public restrooms but also about managing and operating public rest spaces. For example, they add rest stop functions, providing resting areas for sanitation workers, showers for campsites, and bookstores and coffeehouses for tourists.

Zhao said that in the future, the team will continue to deepen their work in the public restroom field, integrating design, construction and operations. "I believe people's expectations for public restrooms should be higher. We need to continuously raise the standard for this industry. Additionally, it's crucial to create a closed-loop process, from design to construction to operation. And feedback from the operation process can help us improve and refine the design. This virtuous cycle is what allows public restrooms to improve step by step," Zhao said.

Hangzhou's journey to innovate its public restrooms began early. In 2002, the city introduced free public restrooms. In 2008, addressing issues such as sanitation and shortage of facilities, Hangzhou launched a major plan to upgrade the sector, with a goal to build China's top-tier public restrooms. The milestone came in 2018, when the city introduced a three-year "toilet revolution" plan. That year saw the first Lansing Public Toilet built and opened on the Su Causeway, which quickly became a viral sensation in the public toilet sector.

Over the past 20 years, Hangzhou has continuously introduced convenient services, offering clean, free restrooms with basic amenities like toilet paper. Today, the city continues to uphold these high standards while further enhancing the quality of its public services. The blend of technology, branding and aesthetic design in public restrooms is a reflection of Hangzhou's commitment to providing high-quality urban experiences.