Public bathroom stalls are the way they are, because they're pre-fabricated, cheap, easy to assemble, and offer the bare minimum amount of privacy we tolerate in a public restroom. The gaps in my office's bathrooms are so wide that if anyone slams one of the other stall doors, your door will pop open because the lock can barely reach, so even a small vibration can make it slip. The standard american bathroom stall was designed by Johnathan Q.
Peeperton VI in 1922 in Deer Creek Michigan. Officially his patent claimed the new design was for better cheaper ventilation and to prevent people from lingering in the stalls. Here on reddit, it is a HUGE deal that USA public bathroom stalls in commercial buildings have those slits on each side where you can see in, and huge 1 1/2 foot gap at bottom.
WHY do builders and developers do this? I'm guessing they are referring to sound transfer between the bathroom and adjacent rooms. However, bathrooms with suspended ceilings still typically have walls that extend to the structural floor/ceiling above, so sound transference isn't more of an issue than it would be in bathroom with a hard lid ceiling.
They make partitions just like the ones in the post available to any property owner that wants to spend the money, but no-one does. For reference, those stalls in the picture probably cost 4. A public park in the same city will have no doors on the stalls in the 'poor' part of town, not to mention likely prison-style fixtures for toilet paper (if any is on offer) and will generally lack sanitary supplies.
These bathroom stall messages make me believe if people can have such great thoughts in bathrooms, they can definitely find their best ideas in the shower. I was in a stall at work browsing reddit after using the toilet and just killing time until my break was over. When what can I only tell was a somewhat older man shuffling his way over to the stall next to mine.
There is only one small bathroom for the two floors, and it only has two stalls and one sink. I walked in needing to use the facilities, and a woman was talking on her phone by the sink.
