Care to stay in a Toilet-Home?

Care to stay in a Toilet-Home?

Notice any resemblance to any of your household item? No?

Now a better look from the top, manage to notice it by now? Yes, you're right! It's a toilet-shaped home, the world's one and only toilet house. The house design was brainchild by Sim Jae-duck, chairman of the organising committee of the Inaugural General Assembly of the World Toilet Association to mark the association's first general assembly in November.

Worth US$1.6 million, the 4,508-sq-foot two-storey concrete and glass structure features a couple of bedrooms, four deluxe toilets, and even a small garden in the front of the house. The toilets have features that range from elegant fittings to the latest in water conservation devices. The house located in Suweon, South Korea is named Haewoojae, which signifies in Korean "a place of sanctuary where one can solve one's worries". He hopes his toilet house will highlight the global need for better sanitation. Before he moves in, anyone who is flush with funds can rent it for US$50,000 a day, with proceeds going to his campaign to provide poor countries with proper sanitary facilities.

Served as a Mayor in Suweon from 1995-2002, His drive to transform toilets into "clean and beautiful resting places imbued with culture" earned him the nickname "Mayor Toilet". His achievements motivates him to launch the Korea Toilet Association in 1999. The proposed World Toilet Association might be seen to rival squeaky-clean Singapore, where the World Toilet Organisation is based, but Sim has said the work of the two bodies will not overlap. They are dedicated to provide and promote clean sanitation to the more than 2 billion people around the world who live without toilets.

Epidemics caused by poor sanitation worldwide cost two million lives a year. Worldwide, 2.6 billion people live without toilets. Elsewhere, poorly designed flush toilets waste vast amounts of potential drinking water. "Toilets were once regarded as stinking and dirty places. Not any more. They must be treated as the sanctuary that protects human health," Sim said. Ironically, Sim was born in a restroom which is intentional by her mother because traditional beliefs that people born in restrooms will enjoy longer life!

Source : koreatimes.co.kr