More on Alexander Kira in Life Magazine, via Google Books 
 
 Next: Rub a dub dub, a party in the tub 
 
 The History of the Bathroom Part 1: Before the Flush 
 
 The History of the Bathroom Part 2: Awash In Water and Waste 
 
 The History of the Bathroom Part 3: Putting Plumbing Before People 
 
 History of the Bathroom Part 4: The Perils of Prefabrication 
 
 Follow me on Twitter! The toilet, according to Kira, is “the most ill-suited fixture ever designed.” Why? Kira's design is a compromise, lowering the toilet to nine inches off the floor and letting the user sit, almost but not quite in a squat. In a squatting posture, the bend straightens out, like a kink ringed out of a garden hose, and defecation becomes easier. Kira’s update of the sink calls for an arching spout—similar to a water fountain—that projects from a deeper back end toward a closer, shallow end, with a hump carved on the surface between them. The shower/bath portion, meanwhile, has no place in the current state of American restrooms. But perhaps the biggest problem with America’s restrooms is not the poor design of the items within, but the key item that’s missing. And what is the trend in toilets in America? It also has a built-in bidet spray, to properly clean our bottom; toilet paper doesn't do it. As Kira liked to continually mention, an old study in Britain found that 44 percent of the population walked around with dirty underwear. Kira liked to quote the author of the study: 
 
 Many are prepared to complain about a "tomato sauce stain on a restaurant tablecloth, whilst they luxuriate on a plush seat in their faecially stained pants."
– You have until tomorrow to vote on the winner of this year's "America's Best Restroom" contest, but Rick Paulas has news for you—nearly all of the bathrooms in America are complete failures. He runs down his reasoning at Pacific Standard: The toilet: It's actually easier on our bodies to defecate in a squatting position, rather than hunching over, which tends to "kink" up the works, garden-hose-style. (One study found that while it takes squatters an average of just 51 seconds to have a bowel movement, it takes people in the hunched-over posture 2 minutes and 10 seconds.) Rather than creating products you can buy to fix this problem, why not redesign the toilet itself? The sink: Its entire purpose is to clean your hands, yet it quickly and easily becomes dirty itself. In 1976, a Cornell professor named Alexander Kira published a treatise on the bathroom, and he suggests a different sink design that would eliminate this problem. He also calls for higher sinks that we don't have to bend over to use. The toilet paper: It's time, Paulas argues, for the bidet to catch on in the US as it's already done overseas. For one thing, it does a better job of cleaning up; for another, you actually use less water when you use a bidet, because of how much water is required to make TP. The bath or shower: Or, more accurately, the lack thereof in most public restrooms. What with water and money both currently in short supply, "a return to public bathing [is] more an inevitability than a possibility," Paulas writes. Click for his complete column.