By Daniella Donzelli Scorza - 18th December, 2025
The AIANY Interiors Committee, in collaboration with the AIANY LGBTQIA+ Alliance, examined how design professionals can move beyond workarounds and toward meaningful policy advocacy, using all-gender, multi-stall restrooms as a critical case study. The session framed restroom design not as a niche issue, but as a test of how architecture either reinforces exclusion or actively supports dignity, health, and equity. Building on a decade of advocacy and research, including insights from “A Stall for One, A Stall for All” published in the Summer 2025 Oculus Teamwork Issue, the session reinforced that this movement is both mature and ready for codification.
At its core, the discussion was both diagnostic and mobilizing. Speakers emphasized that architects have the power to design spaces that function well, or spaces that fail people daily. With that power comes responsibility: to identify outdated codes, challenge ineffective standards, and advocate for regulations informed by best practices and real-world performance.
The session focused on New York State bill A6964/S7131, which will be reintroduced in 2026. The bill proposes clear standards for the design and construction of all-gender bathrooms across New York State and New York City, applicable to both new construction and existing buildings undergoing renovation or alteration. Currently, no legislation exists that enables consistent, successful design of multi-stall, all-gender restrooms. New York City code still mandates sex-segregated facilities, forcing design teams to rely on single-user “workarounds” that often undermine accessibility, efficiency, and inclusion.
The presenters made clear that without code reform, inclusive design remains unnecessarily difficult, even when clients, designers, and users all support it.
A central theme of the event was the reframing of restrooms as public health infrastructure, not optional amenities. When people cannot safely or confidently access a restroom due to gender identity, ability, age, or family structure, the result is not just inconvenience; it is harm.
Ruth Ro, Partner at Dattner Architects and a leader in advocacy through Build Out Alliance, shared research showing that poorly designed restrooms lead many users to avoid using them altogether. This avoidance can result in medical complications and unmet basic bodily needs. In these cases, the design itself fails health and dignity.
These themes of human needs build on questions Plastarc has been exploring for years. In earlier research on workplace amenities presented at the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture Conference in 2018, Plastarc examined how spaces often treated as secondary, restrooms among them, shape comfort, behavior, and wellbeing. That work echoed arguments made earlier in Work Design Magazine (2016), which framed restrooms as environments where equity and privacy are experienced in very tangible ways, particularly for people whose needs fall outside standardized, binary assumptions.
Common restroom layouts often lack sufficient privacy, prevent caregivers of other genders from assisting others, and create environments where individuals feel policed, judged, or questioned simply for entering the space. Inclusive restroom design addresses these failures by prioritizing privacy, safety, and autonomy for everyone, including parents, caregivers, elders, children, and people of all gender identities. Additionally, well-designed all-gender restrooms are often cost-neutral (and in some cases cost-saving) when compared to traditional configurations. Plastarc has continued to examine how underinvesting in restroom design can lead to higher long-term costs through inefficiencies, retrofits, and user avoidance, and offered a ten point guide in our newsletter to designing a restroom that actually offers respite and improves comfort.
Together, the research and the discussion point to the same conclusion: when restrooms are designed to truly support human needs, they function not as liabilities, but as essential, well-performing infrastructure.
The presenters examined how other jurisdictions are already moving forward. Massachusetts, for example, has adopted the International Plumbing Code (IPC) and established guidelines that require high partition stalls to support privacy and comfort. Dattner Architects shared their own approach, offering more accessible and barrier-free strategies for implementing successful multi-stall, all-gender restrooms that balance privacy, maintenance, and operational needs.
Design precedents played a key role in grounding the discussion. Dattner highlighted their work at Forest Hills Stadium, where multi-stall all-gender restrooms have been implemented successfully in a high-traffic arena setting. The project demonstrates that inclusive restroom design can perform effectively at scale, even when full-height partitions are not feasible due to maintenance and cleanliness considerations. The takeaway: there is no single solution, but there are proven design strategies that work when guided by clear standards.
What emerged most clearly from the event was a shared understanding that inclusive restroom design is fundamentally about dignity, and that dignity can and should be embedded into code. Designers already know how to create successful all-gender restrooms; what’s missing is a regulatory framework that allows these solutions to be implemented consistently and confidently.
The session left attendees with a sense of urgency, clarity, and optimism. With the reintroduction of the New York State bill in 2026, there is real opportunity for design professionals to lend their expertise, advocate alongside legislators, and help shape standards that reflect how spaces are actually used.
For PLASTARC and the broader design community, the message was clear: when policy aligns with practice, inclusive design stops being an exception and becomes the norm.
