Community Fitness Centre

Community facilities have the widest user range of any gym type. This centre serves school groups in the afternoon, adult fitness classes in the evening, and a daytime rehabilitation referral programme for older residents — all from the same 420 m².

The design problem

Equipment that suits a sixteen-year-old athlete is often wrong for a seventy-year-old in a rehab programme, and vice versa. The brief was explicit: no zone should exclude any user group, and no machine should require supervision to use safely.

Three specification decisions followed:

• Adjustment range over load range. We favoured machines with a wide seat and pad adjustment span, accepting a lower maximum load where necessary. The leg press and chest press lines were both selected on adjustment range first.
• Light-load control. Counterweighted arms and 1:2 cable ratios make the low end of the resistance range usable, which is where most of this membership trains.
• Marked start positions. Every selectorised machine carries a marked start position and numbered stack, so a member in a referral programme can work unassisted between appointments.

Layout

The floor is zoned so the rehabilitation programme can run in a corner without the noise of the free-weight area behind it. Storage is positioned at the zone boundaries, which in practice is what keeps a shared floor tidy across three different user groups in one day.

Outcome

The centre reported that the rehabilitation referral programme expanded beyond its original capacity, in part because participants could use the equipment without staff assistance. A second order followed for a functional training extension.