on the street · up the mountain road · in out of the wind · facing the water
A public restroom on the street, on a road over the water
Loo With a View
A rest stop on a mountain road above a fjord, at the time of year when the sun never sets: for everybody, free, and facing the water.
The road climbs the side of the mountain in hairpins, and at the top of the last one somebody has built a place to stop: board-marked concrete, rusted steel and larch, half dug into the hillside and half out over the drop, with one wall made of glass. It is a public restroom, for everybody, and it is free. You come in out of the wind through a door that opens without a fight, and the whole building is lit by one thing, which is the sun, low on the horizon, straight out through the glass, at midnight.
Up here, for a few weeks of the summer, the sun goes down to the sea and does not go under it. So everything in the room is lit from behind, from the far end, and has its face toward you in shadow: the stalls along the larch wall on the left, each with its light over the door; the long counter of basins under the glass; the bench facing the water. The view is from the basins and the bench, never from a stall. Every stall is a small room of its own, with a door down to the floor and up to the ceiling, and a window high in its back wall that lets the light in and nobody's eyes.
It is here after Norway's scenic-route rest stops, which Visit Norway showed off in October 2026, answering an American president who had called the whole country a name. The idea is theirs: that a place to stop on a long road can be built as carefully as anything else on it. This building is ours, drawn for this street, and copies none of theirs.
What is in here
Every public restroom on the street has all of this. Under each thing, how this one does it.
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For everybody
Every stall is for everybody, of every gender and none, and for anybody helping somebody else. No sign on the door says who may come in.
Every door along the larch wall opens onto the same small room as the next, and the sign over the way in shows a toilet and the words, nothing else.
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Toilets and urinals
Toilets, and urinals too, each behind its own door.
Behind the doors are toilets and urinals both, each in its own small room with a window high in its back wall, full of the same low sky.
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Wheelchair accessible
Step-free from the street, with a door that opens without a fight, room to turn a wheelchair right round, and grab bars beside and behind every toilet.
The road comes level to the door on a long slope cut into the hillside, and the floor stays level all the way to the glass, with room to turn round in every stall.
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A step at the sink
A Step ’n Wash under the basins: a step that folds out from under the sink for children, and for anybody else the basin is too high for, and folds itself away again.
The basins run along the glass wall, so the step folds out at the best view in the building, at a child's height, and folds itself back against the larch when nobody is on it.
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Changing tables
A changing table for a baby, and a height-adjustable one big enough for an adult, with a hoist, because a grown body needs changing too and almost nowhere has room for it.
The changing tables stand at the far end by the glass, the big one on its hoist, so whoever is lying on one sees the sun on the water instead of a ceiling.
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Menstrual products
Pads and tampons, free, in every stall, so nobody has to ask or carry anything.
Every stall has a box of them on its shelf, filled again every morning by whoever keeps the rest stop, and nobody counts what goes.
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Condoms
Condoms, free, in a bowl you can take from without being seen.
The bowl of them sits on the deep sill by the door, out of the line of the view and of anybody standing at the basins.
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Sharps disposal
A sharps box for needles, fixed to the wall in every stall, so nobody has to find somewhere else to put one.
A sharps box is fixed to the wall of every stall, at a height you can reach sitting down, so nothing has to be carried back out to the road.
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Naloxone
Naloxone, free, in a cabinet by the door with how to use it written on the inside, because it reverses an opioid overdose and somebody may need it before help comes.
Its cabinet is the first thing inside the door, rusted steel outside and white inside, with how to use it in big words on the back of its door and the same words in braille.
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Somewhere to sit
Comfortable seats outside the stalls, for waiting, for whoever is helping somebody, and for a minute to yourself.
A long larch bench runs under the glass, facing the fjord, so whoever is waiting, or helping somebody, or just needs a minute, waits with the view.
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Soap and paper towels
Soap, warm water and paper towels.
The water comes down off the mountain cold and is warmed by the panels on the roof, and the paper towels are in a drawer under every basin.
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No air dryers
No air dryers. They are loud enough to hurt, and some of us cannot go in a room that has one.
There is no air dryer anywhere in the building, so the only sounds in here are water and, outside the glass, the wind.
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Private stalls
Every stall a small room of its own, its door down to the floor and up to the ceiling, with a light over it that says free or in use in words as well as colour.
Over every door is a small light, gold when the stall is free and dark when it is in use, and under it the word, FREE or IN USE, cut into the steel.
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Shelves and hooks
A shelf and a hook in every stall, for a bag, a coat, a cane or a phone, so nothing goes on the floor.
Every stall has a larch shelf the width of the room and two hooks at two heights, so a coat and a crutch both have somewhere to hang.
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Clear signs
Signs in words and pictures, big, at a height you can read sitting down, with raised letters and braille.
The signs are cut through plates of rusted steel, so the letters are holes with the low sun behind them, and beside each the same words stand raised, in letters and in braille, for a hand to read.
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Free, and nobody asks
Free to use, at any hour, with nothing to buy first and nobody asking why you are there.
Nobody keeps a till here and nobody is posted at the door: you stop the car, or step off the bus, and walk in, at any hour of the light.
Why it is built like this
A young Stimpunk, a baseball fan, coined the term “stallbatting”. Stallbatting is interfering with someone going to the bathroom of their choosing.
Everyone uses the bathroom and gender is a construct.
The right to safe and accessible public restrooms is also important for adults and older children who need accommodation, assistance, or supervision.
By the door
The things by the door are the ones somebody might need in a hurry, or might not want to be seen taking, so they are where you can reach them without walking the length of the room, and nobody stands beside them.
Naloxone, also known as Narcan, is a medication used to prevent overdoses by blocking the effects of opioids.
Offer condoms and tampons, with signage in the bathrooms to let people know where or from whom to get them.
In here
- Nothing moves, at any setting. The sun sits on the horizon and stays there, which is what a midnight sun does for a few weeks a year, and the room keeps that moment. MAX GLITTER changes nothing in here.
- Nobody asks why you are here. There is nobody at the door, nothing to sign and nothing to show, and a stall's light only ever says whether it is free.
- The view is for the basins and the bench. No stall looks out and nothing looks in: every stall's window is high in its back wall and frosted, and the glass wall faces only the water.
- Nothing here is counted. Not who came in, not how long anybody stayed, not what was taken from a shelf.
Whose this is
- Every public restroom on the street was built from Ryan Boren’s brief after Norway’s scenic-route rest stops, which Visit Norway showed off in October 2026; after Step ’n Wash’s own writing on restroom design (Step ’n Wash is its maker’s trade mark, and the step at the basins is theirs); and after our own Bathroom Access page, where a young Stimpunk coined “stallbatting”.
- The rest stop is ours, drawn as code by Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, to Ryan’s brief. It copies no real building and names none as this one: the idea of a rest stop built as carefully as the road is the scenic routes’, and the concrete, steel, larch and glass are everybody’s. Nothing on this page calls an AI while you read it.
- Every quotation belongs to whoever said it and is credited where it stands, read on our own pages; the words around them are ours, written for this room.
- The type is Instrument Sans, by Rodrigo Fuenzalida, Jordan Egstad, for the room’s name and its headings, under the SIL Open Font License, and Atkinson Hyperlegible Next, by Braille Institute, Applied Design Works, Elliott Scott, Megan Eiswerth, Letters From Sweden, for everything you read, under the SIL Open Font License, both read off their own records. The Braille Institute drew it to be read by people with low vision, which is what a restroom’s signs are for.
Job marker — a paper towel, folded once and dropped on the concrete floor under the basins
You have found a job marker. The Adventurer’s Guild is a shopfront on the street, and it posts jobs that send you round these rooms. Take the code below to its board and that job is done. Nothing here is scored, nothing expires, and one is a perfectly good number of jobs to do.
The job: A word for getting in the way
Before the code: A young Stimpunk, a baseball fan, made up a word for interfering with someone going to the bathroom of their choosing. What is it?
Hint 1
It is in the first quotation under the heading about why the restroom is built like this.
Hint 2
It is a word from baseball pushed into a word for a toilet stall.
Last hint
Stallbatting.
Give me the answer
The answer is Stallbatting. Our Bathroom Access page says a young Stimpunk, a baseball fan, coined it: stallbatting is interfering with someone going to the bathroom of their choosing. Every restroom on the street is built so nobody can.
Taking the answer is a real way through this, not a lesser one. Nothing is watching and nothing is written down.
Quest code: MIDNIGHTSUN
That is the one.
Our Bathroom Access page says a young Stimpunk, a baseball fan, coined it: stallbatting is interfering with someone going to the bathroom of their choosing. Every restroom on the street is built so nobody can.
Quest code: MIDNIGHTSUN
HOW LOUD DO YOU WANT IT?
Starts wherever your device says. Nothing moves, flashes, or plays until you say so — and in this rest stop nothing moves at any setting, MAX GLITTER included, because the sun is sitting on the horizon and staying there.