The new bathrooms are open 24 hours in a busy Central North Island State Highway One location, across the road from the National Army Museum at Waiouru.

Built by Ruapehu District Council, after 18 months of community consultation and concept design leading to a final developed design, the toilet block is "a pretty special building," says the council's group manager of community services, Margaret Hawthorne.

Guided by the desire of locals to acknowledge the army's presence in the area and the council's commitment to establishing quality, long-term facilities, the building's design references a concrete bunker and the nearby museum.

Inside, the facilities are fitted out with Resco's robust Compact Laminate cubicles and vanity units in a smart red and grey combination.

"It was important that we were guaranteed longevity, but equally that the facility inspired respect from users," explains Margaret Hawthorne. "If something looks good, it seems to get a lot more respect."

The council opted to use Resco for the project following a successful collaboration on a smaller facility at Ohakune. "Resco has a superb product and a great range of colours," says Margaret Hawthorne. She adds that they found the company "fantastic" to deal with. "They gave us some really good advice at just the right time. Based on that we used different hand basins and now it is completed we can see they were absolutely right."

Resco product specialist Troy Henriques says the Waiouru RDC restroom "looks amazing", adding "They would be one of the nicest public toilets that Resco has been involved in — and we have done a few!" He points out Resco's solid core Compact Laminate products are "the smart solution" for high use areas such as at Waiouru. "In addition to being water, impact and graffiti resistant, all our panels contain Antibac, an innovative new bacteria-repelling compound."