Prairie-Architects

Prairie Architects, Inc.

Public Toilets

For most of the history of the Bandshell, portable toilet facilities have been brought in at each performance
to accommodate the concert goer's needs. This is expensive and inconvenient to do. Under UBC-97, the
standard building code, each toilet would serve 125 men and 65 women, resulting in a small building.
However, the City of Fort Dodge uses a modified code that is much more stringent. Under its provisions, we
were required to provide facilities for up to 800 people, half men and half women.

For this target population, we needed three toilets, three urinals, and three lavatories for men. For women
we were required to have eleven toilets and three lavatories. This required a fairly large building, one that
needed to compliment the existing Bandshell without competing or overshadowing it.

We have proposed the Public Toilets be built as an alternate, allowing it to be constructed at the time of the
Bandshell restoration work or at a later date as funds allow. Located to the west of the existing Bandshell,
the structure is freestanding if built alone, or attached to the Bandshell if built in conjunction with the
Greenroom alternate addition.

The perimeter wall structure will be constructed using insulated concrete forms with an acrylic stucco
exterior finish. Due to constraints explained in the Greenroom Addition page, a two way reinforced
concrete waffle slab with the edges turned up to form a 24-inch fascia was chosen for the roof structure.
This type of construction was developed by the Modernists in response to their attempts to reduce the
height of their buildings, simultaneously providing a visually decorative structural system that could be
displayed without adornment. It is commonly found in their buildings, and is perhaps one of the most
distinctive visual elements in their body of work. We have slanted the roof to contrast the dome shape of
the Bandshell.

The west facade of the toilet building is treated as a curtain wall, partially constructed of opaque glass
block masonry set into a curved framed wall clad in burnished metal panels. The blocks should play the
light of the setting sun very nicely and light the interior spaces on the evenings of band performances.
The burnished metal panels provide a welcome visual relief from the monochromatic color scheme typical
of the balance of the building elements. Wrapping the enameled panels around the north and south faces
of the building walls provides a cue to orient persons walking from the Bandshell to the toilet door
locations.

Inside, the floors are finished with quarry tile, the walls with ceramic tile to an elevation of 7'-0" above the
finish floor and gypsum wall board from there to the ceiling.

Karl King Bandshell
Fort Dodge, Iowa

Prairie Architects, Inc. -- 103 South Third Street -- Fairfield, Iowa 52556