The Man on a Quest to Digitally Preserve America’s Public Restrooms

For the past three years, Jake Welch has been scanning public restrooms and preserving their unique features on a website called The Restroom Archive. The site serves visitors with a random 3D scan of a public restroom along with its location and a brief written description. Welch, a freelance designer from NYC, started the project as a joke, but soon discovered he enjoyed capturing the quirky and interesting aspects of these spaces.

The scans, created with smartphone photogrammetry apps like Polycam, are imperfect as they often appear distorted, with reflective surfaces causing issues and sometimes even capturing unattached objects in the final render. Despite these imperfections, the Archive offers a surreal and amusing look into America's public restrooms. Welch sees these restrooms as a reflection of the culture and people they serve, showcasing everything from well-designed and decorated restrooms to those that are grimy, worn, or even graffitied.

As he approached the third anniversary of the project, Welch decided to open the Archive to public submissions. He established submission agreements to ensure quality, prevent trespassing, and avoid scanning private residential restrooms. Using his iPhone, Welch prefers the Pro model with LiDAR for scanning due to its ability to create detailed 3D models, even though he acknowledges there are better methods for scanning.

Despite the limitations of photogrammetry, Welch enjoys the unique "blobby" aesthetic created by the iPhone's LiDAR technology in the final renders.