Whether it is a shopping mall, a multiplex, an airport or a railway station, you may have noticed something odd while using the toilets at these places. The doors are not like the ones at home. A bathroom door in your house runs all the way down and touches the floor, but the doors in public spaces are smaller and stop several inches above the ground, leaving an open gap at the bottom. At first glance the design can seem strange, and a natural question pops up, that if anyone can bend down and peek from below, why are such doors made at all. The truth is that this gap exists for several well thought out and genuinely useful reasons.
Safety is the biggest reason
These doors are deliberately kept a little above the floor so that a person trapped inside can be helped during an emergency. Sometimes a person who has gone in suddenly falls ill, feels dizzy or faints and collapses. In such situations, people standing outside can get a sense of what is happening through this gap at the bottom and pull the person out quickly if needed.
Cleaning becomes much easier
Keeping public toilets clean is one of the most important tasks. The advantage of a gap between the door and the floor is that cleaning staff can slide a mop and cleaning tools underneath without even opening the door. This makes it easy to mop the entire floor, keeps the place hygienic and helps keep odour away.
Better airflow and less smell
Hundreds of people use these toilets through the day, so smell and dampness are only natural. Good ventilation becomes essential in such places. The gap at the bottom creates a path for air to move in and out, allowing fresh air to keep reaching inside and reducing the bad odour to a large extent.
Less chance of someone hiding
From a safety point of view too, these doors are kept small and raised off the ground. With open space between the floor and the door, it is easy to tell from outside whether some miscreant or suspicious person is hiding inside.
Lower cost as well
Compared to full length doors, smaller doors need less material to build. That is why installing them in public spaces brings down the cost of construction and maintenance to some extent.
How valid is the privacy worry
Some people may find this design uncomfortable from a privacy angle and feel a little awkward because the doors are set higher up. But there is no need to worry, because the gap is only at the bottom and is low enough to keep a person's privacy intact. This is exactly why you will find similar doors in most public toilets around the world.
