Glass floor in bathroom has illuminated view of 15-level elevator shaft

The glass floor in the bathroom of this house in Mexico looks down an unused 15-floor elevator shaft.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Donald Petersen

I wonder how sealed-off that shaft is. An errant elevator repairman might get a naughty view, albeit some 150 feet overhead.

I also wonder if the lightbulbs are easily changed. Pooping over a lit 150-ft shaft would be disturbing enough. Pinching a loaf above a yawning abyss of blackness might be even more challenging.
- Bersl
  
  I think it said that the elevator was never actually installed.
  - Donald Petersen
    
    It did, but I wonder if there’s absolutely no access to it from below.
- Scott Anger
  
  I’m going to go with the gaping maw of blackness being the more disturbing of the two.
http://twitter.com/emilylang emilylang

I can see how this might inspire someone to crap themselves.
- bklynchris
  
  I cannot imagine how if I could even step in there, that I would be able to relax enough to let a single sphincter to open.
  - Gekko_Gecko
    
    Yeah I can understand that when you ne…..wait…what?
    
    You have more than one sphincter?
    - rabidcow
      
      Maybe he’d be too scared to open his eyes (irises)
    - angerbot
      
      Your body has a variety of sphincters.
    - IamInnocent
      
      Think!
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Do you have a cloaca?
    - Labbit
      
      Shel-Bot: Very well. I don’t understand why you’re not enjoying this. Together, in this car, with my enhanced capabilities, we’re like Knight Rider.
      
      Leonard: Except in Knight Rider, the car isn’t a yammering sphincter.
      
      Shel-Bot: You mock the sphincter, but the sphincter is a class of muscle, without which human beings couldn’t survive.
      
      Shel-Bot: There are over 50 different sphincters in the human body. How many can you name?
      
      Leonard: I was wrong, this is exactly like Knight Rider.
    - bklynchris
      
      yeah…otherwise I just woulda said “rectum”. I am still hoping I will grow one in my mouth though….
  - Roman Berry
    
    That’s kind of what I was thinking. Sitting over that shaft might tend to bind things up a bit…
eyetropy

Picture is not working #corrections
- Kleinzeit
  
  Photographed by a Descriptive Camera that printed out the numbers of the floors the lift stopped at…?
pjcamp

When I was an undergrad, I had a calc prof whose office was in a closed in remodeled elevator shaft. There was still a sign on the wall of his office left over from the construction — Caution: Open Shaft.

He was, too.
- Labbit
  
  One of the lift wells (Aussie for elevator shaft) in my engineering building at university was used as a microgravity experiment drop tower. There were warning signs on the barred-over doors on each level reading “Caution: Open Lift Well”, except on one floor it had become:
  
  CAUTION: OPEN LIFT WELL PROPER GOOD
BookGuy

Being afraid of heights, my first reaction was, “Wow, I’d totally lose my shit if I had to go in there.” So…success?
http://grumer.org/ Avram Grumer

They could stick a realistic mannequin down there, staring up at you.

Or fake up a pool with alligators.
- http://www.genreville.com/ Josh Jasper
  
  Ball pit!
  - ppdd
    
    Initially I thought: great idea! Then I envisioned sinking through 200 feet of balls, with no one aware I was even down there, my screams muffled by the jolly plastic spheres around me, slowly dying in the dark.
    
    I’ll take an open pit, thanks.
- http://www.matthewpetty.com/ Matthew Petty
  
  Or an octopus pool like the 1940 version of The Thief of Bagdad!
IamInnocent

Craping while looking into a giant bowel…
bcsizemo

For maximum trolling the floor should have just a hair of metallic tint to it and the lights in the shaft should be off. After sitting down for 60 seconds the bathroom lights should go out, and one by one the lights in the shaft should come on starting at the bottom….

Might need a pressure washer to clean up that impending mess….
- Conor Robinson
  
  Even better, go for a mock-up missile nose cone!
- jimh
  
  I was thinking of the glass that has LCD built in so that it becomes opaque gray and then clear at intervals that can be set with a simple circuit. If the floor suddenly opened up when you were standing there? Shits and/or giggles.
jaytkay

oh hell no I wouldn’t tolerate that at all
planettom

I think I’d put helium balloons at the bottom to be released 1 minute after weight was put on the toilet seat.
- http://fallsastar.com Crashproof
  
  And speakers at the bottom that play a recording of vuvuzelas.
  - bcsizemo
    
    Put some vents down by the wall and have them blowing a stream of air up (like you are falling) while playing the horns from Inception…
jimh

The whole place looks amazing. However, it looks like the “maid’s room” is about 6′ square.
- http://dailygrail.com/ Red Pill Junkie
  
  Knowing Mexican architects –and I work for one of them– it could have been worse: they could have sent her to the bottom of the shaft.
fnc

It should informally be referred to as “the poop chute”.
http://twitter.com/gratefulvideo gratefulvideo

Let’s hope that toilet can flush bricks.
SoItBegins

Oh man, you could use that as a set piece in a spy novel!
grs

How did they install the glass floor? Because I’d like to make sure that thing is secure and not about to break. It looks like the glass’s edges sit on a lip and then there’s cable and a brace to support the center. How much weight can that pane of glass withstand? Imagine having a party and everyone wants to go check it out…
- http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith
  
  The clear floor is probably ten times stronger than the opaque floor you would typically install. The bracing looks like a cop out to me. Something to reassure the viewer that there is something there.
- bcsizemo
  
  Tempered glass is fairly strong, I just wouldn’t walk on it with diamond encrusted stiletto heels.
  - penguinchris
    
    Relevant…
http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi

At least if I was shitting myself, I wouldn’t be shitting my self…
eldritch

No one’s asked the obvious question – WHY?
- Mark Lee McDonald
  
  Because it’s there.
  - http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael
    
    Because it’s not there.
- bcsizemo
  
  Actually I wondered if that’s where the poop goes, but I guess why works as well.
JhmL

Acrophobia while taking a dump. How economical.
juepucta

this is just waiting for a guy (let’s be honest, men) to get drunk and try to piss down the shaft – and make an absolute mess of the whole WC
imaguid

i can think of no surer way to ensure sloppy aim than to put the toilet in a room where i can’t look down.
ultranaut

They must have the wildest parties
rattypilgrim

Nothing says, “Relax and make yourself comfortable in our home” like a glass floor in the bathroom looking down 15 floors.
- http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki
  
  shame there’s no spikes at the bottom.
RJ

I know the toilet doesn’t open into the shaft, but that would be pretty funny if it did. The updraft alone would make it nearly impossible to slacken one’s grip, so to speak.
Antinous / Moderator

The height doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is that it’s a waste of space that could be turned into a really amazing 150 foot-tall bookcase.
- ocker3
  
  I, think I love you.
- http://profiles.google.com/bigfatpugsley Αντώνης Παππάς
  
  “Died from falling from the top bookshelf”
- lewis_stoole
  
  or a really amazing 150-foot-tall septic tank
http://profiles.google.com/bigfatpugsley Αντώνης Παππάς

Because shitting over an oubliet is always fun.
Corvinus

I would not want to be the one responsible for changing the light bulbs.
http://twitter.com/bigbadchang Chang Terhune

Uh… ”What is a surefire way to keep me from taking a dump?”, Alex?
http://www.vitamincm.com VitaminCM

Good luck focusing on the bowl while you pee. Talk about a distraction.
- http://www.genreville.com/ Josh Jasper
  
  This is clearly a ploy by a woman designed to have men pee while sitting, thus preventing the “toilet seat left up” issue.
  - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_VOYB46DAHOFEZV64LAVXQFQMVU Cool K
    
    I never understood that “toilet seat up issue.” If we leave it up, doesn’t it then guarantee you that we have not peed all over the seat, thus the seat is clean? But no, as a courtesy to women, men have to put the seat back down. That is why men make more than women working the same job.
    - http://rhinocrisy.org/ saurabh
      
      Why can’t you just sit down? Peeing standing up still makes more splash and gets piss everywhere. It is a bad paradigm that only achieves one thing: it saves a tiny (and I mean TINY, it doesn’t take that long to drop your pants and sit) amount of time for men.
      - jandrese
        
        http://theoatmeal.com/comics/peeing_sitting_down
      - for_SCIENCE
        
        …or you can put the seat down, one motion.
        
        Stalemate.
    - http://www.matthewpetty.com/ Matthew Petty
      
      I always get those “soft close” seats, so I can flip it closed and walk away.
      Of course, I forget that many people don’t have them, so SLAM
jsandin

I can assure everyone that this bathroom photo does not help a hangover.
enterthestory

Lights mean somebody has access to change them. Or best case scenario, a hole exists big enough to poke a tool through. Luckily there is no market for voyeur videos, and even if there were, Mexico is a wealthy country so nobody would be desperate enough to do it.

Oh wait…
ShawShaw

It’s cool looking but isn’t a really slick surface like glass kind of a bad idea for flooring? Particularly since certain… ahem.. “spills” might be more likely due to people being suddenly confronted by what looks like a 150 foot deep pit in the floor?
Martijn Vos

Is this to give the owner of the penthouse the impression they can piss on the peasants below?
A Nonny Moose

Since I don’t see any evidence of a tub or shower, I conclude that this is a “half bath”, and a full bath exists elsewhere in the apartment. This is good, because I couldn’t set foot in this room without carpeting (or painting) the floor.
http://plagmada.org Tim H

There was an architect, Paul Rudolph I think, who installed a glass bottomed bathtub in his own home. The folks in the room below could look up at the bathers.
- Fred von Blume
  
  Great! “Why are there curtains on the ceiling?”
CLamb

I wonder if the shaft continues overhead.
GawainLavers

DONOTWANT
vjer

man id seriously enjoy watching my turds drop 150 feet to a painted + lit target below.
- Donald Petersen
  
  I almost hate to admit it, but me too. But I’m currently celebrating my 35th year of being a 7-year-old boy.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Godwin/591868778 Mike Godwin

This is clearly MINECRAFT inspired.
- http://www.genreville.com/ Josh Jasper
  
  Minecrap?
http://twitter.com/chrisjimson chris jimson

I’m not sure if this will help cure constipation, or make it worse. Arguably you could walk into the room, turn on the light and immediately crap you pants. OR if you make it to the toilet you might be too nervous to move your bowels.

Ironically, both could be considered “scared shitless.”
bwcbwc

Technically, you’re supposed to close the seat and the lid before you flush because the flush sprays germs into the air.
http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/germs-in-bathroom : According to Charles Gerba, PhD, a professor of microbiology at University of
Arizona in Tucson, flushing the toilet with the lid up is not wise.
“Polluted water vapor erupts out of the flushing toilet bowl and it can
take several hours for these particles to finally settle — not to mention
where,” he says. “If you have your toothbrush too close to the toilet,
you are brushing your teeth with what’s in your toilet.”
(argh, this was supposed to post as a reply to Matthew Petty above. Lost the reply link during login?)
skeptacally

a few years back, there was an interesting happenstance at a conservation area not so far away from my home city of peterborough, ON… http://contests.eyeweekly.com/eye/issue/issue_01.04.96/NEWS/nak0104.php

my guess is that a photo like this would be prime porn for the poor arrested fellow.

oh, and by “poor,” i mean: sick and twisted.