One Hundred Restrooms - sustainable interior design and healthy building concepts applied to the public restroom
one hundred restrooms atocha madrid
Green Healthy Places podcast
Welcome to episode 065 of the Green Healthy Places podcast in which we discuss the themes of wellbeing and sustainability in real estate and hospitality today.
This week I’m in the Netherlands talking to Marielle Romeijn, Co-Founder of One Hundred Restrooms, an innovative brand disrupting the public toilet market by focusing on the environmental impact, consciousness and wellness benefits.
Sustainable interior design for public restrooms
Their custom design modules can be found in shopping malls, railway stations and roadside service stations around Spain, Belgium and Sweden as well as their home country.
We discuss the birth of the brand, their business model, how modular design allows them to customize each experience according to the location, the integration of Internet Of Things technology, alignment with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, how they use multi-sensory design to upgrade the toilet break experience and their relentless pursuit of ever higher hygiene standards.
A case study for interior designers and healthy building experts alike
Marielle’s company is an example of how concepts from green, building's energy efficiency and healthy building design are filtering down the value chain. Have a look at the design of their restrooms, it really is a breath of fresh air, so here she is Marielle Romeijn.
GUEST: MARIELLE ROMEIJN, CO-FOUNDER, ONE HUNDRED RESTROOMS
View on Zencastr
one hundred restrooms on green healthy places
Matt Morley
Marielle, you know, we're often talking about buildings, or hotels on this podcast, or perhaps sustainable interior design in particular but you have taken a particular concept within a building or retail space, or a service station and for me at least, completely reinvented it for the better.
I was saying before we started recording, I went down to experience a One Hundred Restroom yesterday evening, myself, and was blown away by the level of detail and thought that's gone into it.
So I want to allow you some space to share that story. Why don't we start with how the business was born and where it came from? What were the trends in the market that led you and your co founders to say, I think there's a market for this?
Marielle - One Hundred Restrooms
So I have to be honest, we have a history in public restrooms. We used to work for a company called 2theloo. And this company was actually one of the first brands in public restrooms.
What they discovered is that if you look at if you look at it, it's a bit strange that all the core needs that we have like sleeping, eating, going to a toilet, most of them are we have a lot of choices, like like we can choose hotels, we can choose restaurants, but we don't have a good choice in public restrooms.
Most of the times, it's scary, it's unsafe, it's not clean. And it's far from relaxing. So they already discovered that niche in the market. And they said, Okay, this is an opportunity to change. And then they came with a concept which was comfortable and clean, and it was more into fun.
We used to work there with a couple of our co founders we discovered that, of course, there were trends, where we saw that people were more involved into their own wellbeing.
We saw some technology trends, where we saw that restrooms and bathrooms in general becoming more smart and can do also health health analysis.
So there were a couple of things that we thought were interesting to see how we could how we could integrate them in the restaurant concept.
one hundred restrooms
Moving into the wellbeing space
Then we decided to start it over to start it ourselves with a new concept based on the same needs - to have good public rest rooms but with a different vision about how to fulfill this need.
We really wanted to create a new standard. That's that's how we call it a new standard in public restrooms.
This standard we believe is something that goes from a moment of stress and anxiety even, to a moment of wellbeing and of course there's a lot in between because you can also offer just simply good and clean toilets but we thought 'let's move it ahead to the future and make it a moment of wellbeing and make it like a five minute boost'.
Wellness interiors and sustainable materials in a public restroom
Matt Morley
I think there's so much there. I saw biophilic design, I saw elements of wellness interiors and sustainable interior design where you're creating a multi sensory experience, I saw parallels with what's happening in the healthy building movement. So many ideas!
So could you perhaps paint that picture? What are they seeing? What are they hearing on the sound system? What are the services that you're offering?
Marielle - One Hundred Restrooms
So when you see the restrooms, it looks like a retail store, I could say even as a storefront. And from the outside, sometimes you don't even see the toilets yet, we have a zone that we call the reload zone. And that is where you enter.
And the reload zone is a zone where we offer additional services, like for instance, hydration station, nursery, disabled room, but also a health check, pre health check.
Inside, we have a turnstile, where you pay for the toilet entrance. And then we call it a transition zone, which is a black area, where you really make the transition from the outside, which is most of the times basically we're on public areas, you go through a black zone, and then you enter like a white Zen kind of area, which is the restroom area.
Natural light and eco friendly interior design
And there we work with light, indirect lighting, we work with sounds, we use certain sounds which are working on a certain frequency that calms you calms you down, we have a certain sense that we based on nature, nature kind of sense mixed together.
Biophilic design
So it all, I think I think the combination of sensory experiences, makes you feel calm quite soon. Then then we have our toilet cubicles, they are fully private, so we don't have like open how they call it open doors.
Natural materials and multi-sensory design
So you have your private moment, you have the sounds, is of course clean, it feels safe. So all the elements work towards a moment of well being. And, yeah, everything inside is I mean the materialization, we use HPL as our core material. HPL is a very clean material.
It's easy to clean, but also when something happens when people try to put gravity on it or or whatever it's we can take it away, that's also very important thing is that not only cleanliness, but also repair maintenance. And keeping it as new is a very important factor.
Matt Morley
You provide, obviously the sustainable interior design piece and the construction as in you're delivering the product or installing the product for whatever your client might be.
But it doesn't end there because you also have a role in terms of the operations and ongoing maintenance? Is it something that the owner of the client can decide to do themselves or it's you maintain control of the experience on an ongoing basis from the initial design through to whenever the contract ends?
Marielle - One Hundred Restrooms
Yeah, this is really our concept because it's our brand, and we want to keep the standards really high. So it's a full package. We build like you said, we do the interior design and we build the restroom. We aim to create durable and timeless spaces and we incorporate sustainability principles.
But we also operate and maintain the whole concept during 10 years. Meaning we have our own team, our own mechanics, we have field coaches who do audits every week to check if everything is still okay.
We have our own staff, we call it a comfort crew. They clean but they also welcome the guests and explain certain services. So the full concept, including IOT to monitor from a distance is what makes it a success.
Locations for these new healthy environments - restrooms
In general, we are focused on high traffic areas. And these could be shopping malls, train stations, like highway service stations, and sometimes food markets. And of course, it depends a little bit on the on the market.
If they have like big shopping malls with lots of visitors, or if it's small shopping malls, then it's not interesting enough for us from a business case perspective.
So depending on the market, and also depending on the market opportunities, because a lot of times we are part of tenders, so sometimes we we just, of course, there's always an opportunity for a restaurant is not every year, most of the most of the real estate companies rebuild the restaurants maybe once every 10 years or something.
We are always focusing on train stations, railway, highway and shopping malls, in every country in Europe,
Matt Morley
You mentioned the IoT, Internet of Things. So how do you use that technology to maintain visibility on the operations on all of your sites?
Creating spaces that integrated IOT
Marielle - One Hundred Restrooms
Yeah, so we currently have around 40 sites in four countries. And what we have invested in from the start is to really build on a dashboard that we use to monitor all the sites. And we do it by connecting all the hardware.
So starting with with, of course, the turnstile, where people enter to monitor the number of visitors etc. But also the dispensers are connected. So we can see whenever a dispenser is empty, we have the water flows connected with water flow systems, so we can see when something is flowing, or when something stops flowing, then there's also a problem.
So all the all the information together, we also have connected repair or maintenance system, the field coach visits are reported.
So all the data combined gives us a very clear vision on the state of our toilets. And of course, by by combining it by saying like, okay, we can see that on a Saturday morning, we have a lot of visitors, and we can see that the rating was going down a little bit. So maybe we should put more effort into cleaning at that hour. So it gives us a lot of data to work with.
Elements of sustainable interior design in One Hundred Restrooms
Matt Morley
So in terms of sustainable interior design and how that integrates into the brand itself, how are you? How are you playing to future proof the business by working also on environmental friendliness?
Marielle - One Hundred Restrooms
Yeah, we are we are focusing on sustainable interior design now because from the beginning, we choose our partners based on their sustainability goals and sustainable materials.
But what we are doing now, currently is we have we have created, we have measured our footprint ourselves for the whole concept, like a lifecycle analysis to see okay, what kind of material input do we have? How much is the usage?
Green practices
What kind of materials can we maybe change to make our footprint less? So that is something that we are currently really focusing on. And apart from that, I think the well being part is one of the it's one of the factors that we can create a lot of impact with and of course, it's not sustainability in the in the in the terms of climate that it's it is in a bigger perspective, it can create a lot of impact and that is something that we think we can make a difference because we are in the public area.
Matt Morley
As the name of the podcast suggests, I think green combined with healthy is the path for businesses when they're looking to the future, it's that combination of the two sides of one coin.
Mitigating health problems with advanced design concepts
And so on the health and wellbeing piece, you mentioned a couple of things. Hygiene clearly is a big factor. I'd like to understand a bit more beyond just particular materials, but also how you deliver that and using any kind of the UV cleaning systems, or is it just sort of traditional eco cleaning products.
Marielle - One Hundred Restrooms
Okay, so to start with the hygiene and the cleaning. Of course, that is that is the basics. And that is the foundation of our success.
We have cleaning procedures that we follow all the time, and the cleaning procedures, the ultimate cleaning is to clean after every use, because then people feel like, Yeah, welcome and like the restroom is clean for them.
This is not always feasible, but what we try to do is to clean all the time. And apart from from cleaning all the time, we also have specific deep cleaning schedules that we do every morning or every week or every day. So everything is worked out in processes.
And we work with eco friendly materials, like you said. But apart from that, we are also always in every area, we are trying out new things. And one of the things that we are currently testing is a nano formalistic coating, that you can spray on surfaces that are most vulnerable for for hygienic topics, like, for instance, the toilet seat. And it helps. Yeah, it helps to prevent viruses and bacteria from sticking to the surface.
We are also piloting a system now it's called ozone cleaning, it's actually water with some proposal, I don't even know exactly what the technology entails. But we are we are testing it, and it seems to work very well.
And of course, it's more sustainable, even then, then the Eco cleaning. So all kinds of innovative systems are coming to us, we get approached a lot. And we tend to also be very open to try out these these new things.
Matt Morley
The cleaning, I think was it's had a lot of success in the field of dentistry. And so like dentist clinics, I know, they've been using that for a little while, even before the COVID crisis. And then even more.
In gyms and fitness centres, hygiene is especially important there as well, because you've got a lot of people who are exercising, sweating, not necessarily thinking about how they leave a machine afterwards. And so, you know, there's so many other areas where I think the principles that you're applying, I think we can take lessons from what you're doing and what also what you're not doing, because I assume you've tested and discarded a lot of ideas too!
Marielle - One Hundred Restrooms
Yeah, sure. Yeah, absolutely. It's all a matter of routines and consistency as well just just make sure that you do it every day or every morning or every week. Because we also have more challenging situations where we see that when you check it because we check it every week. You see that some some corners are getting a little bit dirty or some something is not like we want it and then you need to find a new procedure if you if you let that go.
But you need to be focused on every single detail. And we find new things every day, as sometimes we see like, ah, there is a little chalk on the fourth step, what can we do? How can we solve that, we buy a new brush, and we try to solve it. So it's a lot about routines and details and discipline, I think as well, apart from the materials that that are new in the market.
Matt Morley
And then there are a number of, say, optional extras that seem to go a little bit beyond the basics. You know, I noticed the motivational mirror was giving me various tips beyond the weather and the time and a few other bits of information it was suggesting, how long to wash my hands for and a beauty bar for ladies to do their makeup and to hydrate?
Who's typically going for the optional extras? Do you see, perhaps service stations keeping it quite simple, just sticking to the core product, and then a luxury shopping mall might want a few extras that are less functional?
Marielle - One Hundred Restrooms
Yeah, that's, that's true. And it has a lot to do with the square meters that we have available on the one hand, and on the other hand, the visitor profile and how much time they have to spend, and what is also a need that they have during their shopping visit.
But in general, it starts with the square meters. The basic idea is that we always have relieve, Refresh and then reload, this is the third part and our goal is to always have the three pillars inside every room, whether it's 25 square meters, or 250 square meters.
But of course, when you when you have 250 square meters, you can add some additional services like for instance, a massage chair with breathing exercises that we offer in certain places.
The Health Check area, sometimes we have a vending wall, we are now testing fending walls with self sampling kits that you can do testing on yourself.
Matt Morley
Okay, so final question then is where does it go from here? You've got 40+ sites in four different territories. There's a market for this. How do you grow and scale a business from here?
Marielle - One Hundred Restrooms
Yeah, so we grow on different sides. But the first one is simply expansion. So what we do is, first of all, we want to grow in our current countries , then we want to grow more in Europe, we already pinpointed some countries that we would like to grow.
And we have a lot of contacts as well. Then from Europe, we might go to the US in five years. But this is a big step, because then you really have to create a new market and create your organization there as well. So we want to focus on Europe first.
What we are also exploring is new business models, to see if we can maybe in the future, separate certain modules and put them for instance, in a corporate business environment, or maybe even in a pharmacy, because the more we develop on health prevention, the more it becomes interesting to see how we can use it in other areas, it could be even a fitness center.
Depending on who pays the CAPEX - sometimes it is the owner, sometimes it's us - then we have a revenue share model based on who has paid for the CAPEX. So the one who paid for the capex gets a little bit more of the revenue.
Sometimes we pay a little bit of rent, sometimes we have a mixed business model. But in the end, when we leave, after 10 years, the assets stay. So in the end, it's the asset of the real estate owner, and we take away our brands, items or our branded items.