Design for Life: The Biophilic Bathroom
How to make your bathroom a healthy, eco-friendly retreat.
July/August 2003
By Carol Venolia
Biophilia: affinity for life
Eros: sensuality
Logos: reason
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The bathroom is where it all comes together in a home: major water use, energy use (heating, lighting, and ventilation), and disposal of bodily wastes, overlain by issues of how we feel about our bodies. Yet bathrooms are usually tucked out of sight, often cramped—certainly not the hub of the home.
If the goal of ecological building is to increase our active respect for all of life, and our own bodies are our nearest and dearest portals to understanding life, shouldn’t the bathroom—the place where our bodies commune with the elements—be the sacred center of the home?
In the bathroom we have an unparalleled opportunity to grasp the dance of life, in our minds and in every cell of our bodies. Our sensory experience there is just as important as the mechanics of a bathroom. If we want to overcome the trend of the last two centuries—when bathrooms expressed a Puritan/Victorian alienation from our bodies—we need to weave together eros and logos.
When our bathroom experience is nurturing and comforting, we feel good about life from the inside out. When our bathwater nurtures our garden, we feel more a part of the web of life. And when our use of water, heat, light, and materials is respectful of the biosphere, we can relax deeply, knowing that our pleasure is not gained at its expense.
In the flow
Bathrooms are all about water: water to wash our face, brush our teeth, bathe our body; water to drink and then pass into the toilet, where more water flushes it away; water condensing on walls and tiles; and water running down the drain.
When we bathe, we relax, we touch ourselves, we cleanse our bodies, and we wash away our cares. In the shower, the pressure of the spray and the negative ions invigorate us. In the tub, the womblike water relaxes taut muscles and calms the mind. We are reborn from the waters of life.
How much better we will feel if we also know that the water we are using is not depleting the water table. Enter logos in support of eros: Reduce your water usage by installing flow restrictors or low-flow faucets; collect rainwater, filter it, and siphon it into the bathtub or a holding tank for your shower; reuse your bathing water by piping it to the toilet tank for flushing, to the washing machine for its first cycle, or into the garden. Logos also asks us not to squander fossil fuels: Use an energy efficient water heater (the sun, wherever possible).
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