Loo designers feel flushed with success

FRESH: The final design of the Carrington Park loo makeover, showing a new pergola with climbing plants in front of the toilets. DRAWING/SUPPLIED

A final design has been chosen for Carterton's Carrington Park loo makeover.

The design, which involves keeping the existing toilet block but adding a pergola with climbing plants and planter boxes, was chosen after people submitted design ideas and a workshop was held.

Working group member Gregg Crimp said the new design would be eye-catching but well integrated with the park.

The toilet block will be repainted the same colour as the existing roof, with a cut-out design of life-sized people wrapped around all four sides of the building. A pergola made from recycled timber will be added in front of the existing building, with planter boxes between the legs of the pergola.

"It will blend well into the park and then we need to have a strong graphic so people who are approaching it will know what it is," Mr Crimp said.

"We needed a smarter and well-considered design addressing a sense of privacy and aesthetic appeal - and having a bit of a rural appeal with the pergola." The cut-out figures will be in same style as the international symbols for toilets.

Carterton graphic designer Beks Farr and landscape architect Hamish Moorhead will be helping with the project.

Working group chairman Greg Lang said the final design was an amalgam of ideas, rather than a single design chosen from the entries submitted.

It became clear during workshop consultation that people believed Carrington Park, rather than the toilets, should be the "centre of attention", Mr Lang said.

Ideas for improvements included opening up the front of the park and making it more user-friendly and inviting, he said.

The makeover of the toilets was just one thing of many the group hoped to achieve.

"There's some great stuff and this is only going to be the start of it. I firmly believe the whole scope of Carterton is going to change.

"We've got some people offering to do stuff and the community is really getting involved."

It was hoped work on the project would begin towards the end of the year.