Legoland bathroom in San Diego: who did it?  

I just took my kid to Legoland north of San Diego and found two designs of note.

First, there was a bathroom at about the farthest point back in the park that was all white tile, with these wonderfully unsusual white sinks with one small, round mirror over each one. I loved the mirror. The urinals were very cool too. There were primary color accent tiles spread around and the toilet stalls had nearly floor to ceiling partitions, something I wish all bathrooms had, and the partitions were in the same wonderful primary colors as the accent tiles. And everything was incredibly geometrically formalized and optimized. It was one of those modernist interiors you think you're going to find too cold at first, but then everything is perfectly at your finger tips and smoothed surfaces are located exactly where you need them tactilely to relieve the severity of the formal order. Whoever designed this bathroom for Legoland was a genius. I almost wanted to stay in there for the afternoon, but, ahem, I thought people would begin to talk, you know? 🙂

The second design that struck me as wonderful is not conventionally modernist. It is a GIANT play structure completely plumbed EVERYWHERE with geysers, unpredictably tipping buckets, conic funnels that suddenly drench you, all manner of spinning, water-spewing whirly gigs, water slides, water cannons, and so on. It is supposed to be a pirates ship and is signed as such, but it is so abstracted that one would hardly be able to tell it but for the massive crows nest bucket high atop the structure that about every five minutes tips over and dumps an absolute torrent on the squealing kids below. I have seen lots of water play areas at other locations, but this one was really just right in scale. Big but not too big. And it absolutely delighted the kids without putting any of them at risk. It was SOOOOOOOOOO delightful. The whole park is refreshing, because it is so understated, refined in sensibility and gentle in comparison to most American theme parks. I really think Legoland is an underrecognized themepark. At first, I thought it was kind of to namby pamby for kids, but the longer I was there with my seven year old, the more impressed I was with the way that it treated us like civilized human beings seeking some children's entertainment and not a bunch of knuckledraggers looking get our fillings rattled. There is something about it that is just SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Danish, and I mean that in the best way. I don't want all parks to be this way, but I sure am glad that at least one is.