TOYKO — Public restrooms can be dicey places, so a nonprofit in Japan is working to change that — in some cases, through public loos with glass walls.

The Nippon Foundation, which has a mission of social innovation, launched the Tokyo Toilet Project to build a better public toilet.

“Japan is known as one of the cleanest countries in the world,” according to the foundation’s website about the project. “Even public toilets have a higher standard of hygiene than in much of the rest of the world. However, the use of public toilets in Japan is limited because of stereotypes that they are dark, dirty, smelly and scary. To dispel these misconceptions regarding public toilets, The Nippon Foundation has decided to renovate 17 public toilets located in Shibuya, Tokyo, in cooperation with the Shibuya city government.”

The Nippon Foundation partnered with 16 leaders in architecture and design to create the toilets, including Shigeru Ban, who in 2014 won the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the world’s premier architecture prizes, which some have referred to as the Nobel Prize of architecture.

“There are two things we worry about when entering a public restroom, especially those located at a park,” according to a statement on the project’s website, tokyotoilet.jp. “The first is cleanliness, and the second is whether anyone is inside.”

Ban relied on technology to solve both problems and designed a pair of toilets with glass walls that turn opaque after someone enters and locks the door.

“This allows users to check the cleanliness and whether anyone is using the toilet from the outside,” according to the statement, and at night, “the facility lights up the park like a beautiful lantern.”

Ban’s toilets are at Yoyogi Fukamachi Mini Park and are among the five that have been completed throughout Shibuya, according to the foundation’s website. Two more are set for completion in the next few weeks, and the remaining 10 are tentative for 2021.

Other toilets include a “Modern Kawaya” or river hut that combines 15 concrete walls to create spaces that lead users into areas for men, women and everyone, according to Tokyotoilet.jp. And Ebisu East Park, a popular neighborhood park and a children’s playground known as “Octopus Park,” is home to the “Squid Toilet.”