Reversible Destiny Child

No that is not the name of the next pop group! Today I took Elliott to visit the office staff downstairs to say thank you for the heated carpet they kindly dropped off yesterday after reading my post about the round room. While we were there I learned that Elliott is certainly not the first Reversible Destiny Baby. A baby was born here, and her older brother was about 5 years old when they moved out of the lofts. I got to hear a bit about how the parents raised their children here. They made the round room into a playroom filled with toys. It sounds like bliss for a kid! I have been curious about how a baby would learn to walk in a Reversible Destiny Loft, and I assumed that a baby would never use the bumpy floor while they were crawling. I was wrong! Apparently the baby living here crawled on the bumpy floor with no problems or added padding.

Speaking of the floor, I solved another mystery! The office staff are in close contact with Madeline Gins, the co-creator of the Reversible Destiny Lofts. The lady in the office was talking to Madeline about how cold we are finding the concrete floors, and apparently Madeline Gins said she thought it was a mistake when they were building the lofts. Madeline Gins wanted to somehow put a floor heater in, but Arakawa Shusaku disagreed. So interesting to be able to hear these stories!!

But that isn't the mystery that was solved. The lady in the office said that originally Arakawa and Gins wanted the floor around the kitchen to be dirt, like in a traditional Japanese farmhouse. In old farmhouses the cooking was often done over open flames, so to protect the rest of the house the kitchen was at ground level, separate from the main living space and the floor was made of dirt so that there was less of a fire hazard. It was convenient because if you were cooking and didn't need some extra water, you'd just tip it out on the floor! Of course, Arakawa and Gins soon realised that there would be mould and damp problems if they tried to have dirt floors in individual lofts, so they gave up on the idea. They kept the concept alive by making concrete floors that would look as though someone had been using dirt floors for a long time.

I feel better knowing that there was a reason behind the floors!

This morning I cleaned the bathroom, so here are a few photos of that. The bathroom is a cylinder, and the shower stall is right in the middle of the room. There is no door, but the toilet is (mostly) hidden from view by the shower. There are two narrow pathways around the shower to the toilet. If I had put on any more weight when I was pregnant with Elliott I might not have been able to get to the toilet! I wonder if this means Arakawa and Gins hoped only slim people would live in their lofts...? I like the narrow paths perhaps the best though. It makes going to the toilet a daily adventure!

The cylinder:


Going up the path on the right:



Our super fancy electronic toilet. The seat is warm 24/7, which I LOVE!



Coming down the path on the right. We use the little green ladder to hang our facetowels on.



Our sink. Where you'd usually stand in a flat house is curved in our loft, so it's impossible to get close to the mirror. I am never sure if I've done my make-up correctly, and Grant sometimes looks interesting after his shave!



The shower. Elliott's green bath is an inflatable bath, to save space!



You can see there's a curtain for privacy on the right. When we arrived at the loft the curtain was knotted back, and Grant and I didn't see a need to untie it. We had friends come to visit, and they didn't realise they could pull the curtain across. They left saying using our bathroom felt "thrilling"!! I must remember to untie the curtain when guests are here in the future.