What can we tell from looking at the state of a country’s public toilets? The loos in Tokyo’s Shibuya district are special. Commissioned by The Nippon Foundation as “a symbol of Japan’s world-renowned hospitality culture” in 2019, architects Shigeru Ban and the late Fumihiko Maki designed 17 public toilets. Hong Kong-based photographer Ulana Switucha took photograph of them them in 2024. “These structures are works of art,” she says. “They shine as beacons in their urban setting and demonstrate that public design can go beyond functionality to represent cultural and artistic value.”
And they are clean.
Cleaning is divided into three categories: daily cleaning performed three times a day; regular cleaning performed once a month; and a special cleaning performed once a year. In addition, the toilets are inspected every month by a third-party toilet consultant. We also hold monthly maintenance and management meetings to monitor the use of our facilities based on daily cleaning and inspection reports and to improve the maintenance and management of the toilets.
Ulana Switucha won the architecture and design category of the Sony world photography awards 2025.
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