Successful planning and design outcomes are best achieved through productive owner/designer collaboration. Here are the top 10 oversights to avoid in a collaborative creative process.

1. The Non-Member: Yes, the member experience is very important, but do not neglect the non-member experience. Remember, all of your existing members were, at one time, non-members.  Always give non-members a reason to walk into an interactive, publicly accessible arrival space, visually explore, and discover what you have to offer.
2. The Club Tour: Remember to think about the “club tour” when developing the building plan. An intuitive, built-in tour of the facility is not only important for your sales team, it is important for your members to discover all that you have to offer. Sometimes weight-lifters can become interested in yoga, and vice versa.  The routing of your indoor walk/jog track is an ideal way to create an effective facility tour.
3. The Indoor/Outdoor Factor: Don’t forget to look for indoor/outdoor opportunities to enrich the member experience. Big windowless boxes are a thing of the past!
4. The Main Stair: In multi-story facilities always look to position a main circulation stair for maximum convenience and openness. Stairways are important code-regulated life safety features, but are often overlooked as instruments of social interaction, connectivity and friendship.
5. Aquatic Detail: Sometimes we can forget that aquatic solutions that worked well 5 or 10 years ago may not be right for today’s users. Water temperature matters, if you need 4 different water temperatures, you will need 4 different pools. Water depth should be thoroughly discussed and optimized for the intended use. The same is true for lane width, play features, floatables, and water access/egress options such as ramps, steps, hoists, and ladders. All of these questions need to be fully discussed before your aquatic plans are finalized.
6. Way-Finding: Sometimes the perceived need for privacy puts walls and doors in the way of natural and intuitive wayfinding. Now that exercise is universally viewed as normal adult behavior, do not be persuaded to avoid openness and glass with privacy walls and doors requiring signage to overcome way-finding obstacles.
7. Recovery Is A Thing: The benefits of vigorous exercise are enhanced by allowing the body to properly recover. What used to be considered optional luxuries are now an essential part of a complete exercise regimen. Hot tubs, cold plunges, saunas, steam rooms, ice baths, massage chairs, hydration stations, and stretch labs are being gathered together and branded as recovery zones.
8. Functional Purpose and Identity: Flexibility comes at a cost, don’t expect your group exercise studios to serve multiple programs. A room designed for yoga must look and feel very different from a room designed for high-energy Zumba classes.
9. Don’t Forget The Children: It is very important for designers and owners to talk about how children will fit into your member experience. There is no single best answer, but facility design will play a critical role in how best to manage the interaction between your adult members and other people’s children.
10. Food and Beverage: Because F&B profitability can be so elusive, most athletic club owners do not want to be in that business, but recognize its importance both as a member service and as a social lubricant. Friendships are sometimes formed over a smoothie or cup of coffee, and friendships play a big role in member retention and healthy social interaction. How do you effectively plan for F&B? Staffing and positioning in the club is an important question that deserves much discussion between owner and designer.

 

One could write a lengthy “dos and don’ts” article on each of these ten topics. However, for all owners and designers, the most important takeaway from this brief blog is: T.T.T.T.T.T.T.T.T.T.T.

Take The Time To Thoroughly Talk Through These Ten Topics Together!!