Urinals With a View at Stockholm Airport

Urinals With a View at Stockholm Airport

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Travelers hearing nature's call at Stockholm's Arlanda airport may think they have ended up in a summer meadow - figuratively speaking.

The airport's newly designed lavatories, which are to open mid-June in Terminal 5, combine pleasant flowery glass art with an improved solution for getting rid of foul odors, Arlanda's designer manager Karin Elfver Renstrom said Wednesday

The men's lavatories will have glass artwork portraying a flower-filled Swedish meadow around and above the men's urinals, with a view through a glass facade onto the tarmac below.

A practical problem led to this unconventional solution that blends art, design and functionality, Elfver Renstrom said.

"It is important that a lavatory should smell good. Urinals often have problems, because odors emanate from the gaps between tiles. By using glass sheets instead of tiles, however, we avoid gaps," she said. "And it is not more expensive than tiles."

The ladies' room also comes with glass artworks, in the shape of giant red buttercups.

The new lavatories are part of an 8,600-square-foot extension of international Terminal 5, which also includes new shops.

The airport last year completed an expansion program to be able to handle 25 million passengers a year and is now concentrating on improving passenger amenities and comforts, Elfver Renstrom said.