Sometimes nature calls at the most inopportune moments. Much like the cinemas who feature mini-movie screens in the bathrooms to make sure you don’t miss out on the full viewing experience, the team at Fortunen has recently completed a toilet block with views of Norway's Skjervsfossen waterfall to make sure users don’t miss out on a minute of the view.
From the luxury of these public facilities, users can view the Storelvi river rush by through the glazed floor panel of the building, which is clad in local stone to accentuate its connection with the surrounding landscape. 
Bergen-based architecture studio Fortunen designed the small service building containing two restrooms and a technical room and position the structure on the bank of the river. Further upstream, the Skjervsfossen waterfall plummets into the riverbed below.
Skjervsfossen is situated on one of Norway's popular Scenic Routes and so the Norwegian Public Roads Administration and National Tourist Routes in Norway tasked Fortunen with creating a subtle public facility that complements the surroundings and makes the most of the views towards the adjacent cliffs and valley. 
"The main concept was to make the wild nature accessible without hurting it," said the studio. "The building appears as a small piece of the mountain, carved out of the rock and relocated to the other side of the riverbank."
A mono-pitched form that extends straight up from the river bank gives the building a monolithic, sculptural presence. Its external surfaces are clad entirely in panels of local stone chosen to echo the hues and textures of the terrain. 
The restrooms are lined with pine plywood stained a warm shade that mirrors the aesthetic of landscape and trees on the opposite bank of the river. Tall, narrow windows and glass panels set into the concrete floors provide views of the river, forest and mountainside that ascends steeply upwards in front of the building. 
In addition to the amenities, Oslo-based landscape architecture studio Østengen & Bergo have also created a series of paths and steps that allow visitors to wander the landscape towards additional viewpoints.
These paths are comprised of large pieces of local stone that connect to and then branch off from more formal paths among the picnic area, parking and public facilities.