Quarry Trails Restroom Building, Franklin County Metro Parks

The Call: A Challenge to Make a Restroom Building Memorable

Quarry Trails is a new park development, and Franklin County Metro Parks wanted every structure in it to contribute to the visitor experience. Including the restroom. Most park restrooms are designed purely for function: durable, low-maintenance, and forgettable. The park’s leadership challenged that assumption. They wanted a restroom building that would stand out as a design feature of the park. The site gave them an opening: the building location was benched into a hill. The question was whether to treat that as a constraint or as the starting point for something visitors would remember.

Choosing a Partner Who Takes the Challenge Seriously

Asking for design distinction from a restroom building requires a partner who takes the request seriously and can deliver it within a public budget. The hillside site offered a design opportunity, but turning it into something memorable required creative thinking and disciplined execution. The park chose Triad.

The Decision That Turned a Hillside into a Deck

The building was benched into the hillside. Instead of treating the slope as a grading problem, Triad designed the structure to take advantage of it. A deck was created on top of the restroom building, using the hillside as the natural platform. Visitors approaching from the trail level encounter a restroom building. Visitors approaching from above, or climbing to the deck, encounter an elevated vantage point with views of the park.

The design, materials, and details were selected to create a structure that feels intentional and distinctive while meeting all functional requirements for a park restroom. The goal was a building that feels special without excess, design distinction achieved through the relationship to the site rather than expensive materials or unnecessary complexity.

The public budget was maximized. Bidder accountability was maintained. The project was delivered on schedule.

A Restroom Building That Visitors Actually Notice

The Quarry Trails restroom building is not a building visitors walk past without noticing. A deck on top of the structure, made possible by the hillside, gives visitors a reason to interact with the building beyond its utilitarian function. The design stands out within the park. All functional requirements are met. The budget was maximized. And a building type that most parks treat as invisible became a memorable part of the Quarry Trails experience. The park chose to invest design attention in a structure most people would have treated as purely functional, and the hillside made the distinction possible.