Better Gym is a new £1.8 million digital gym in the heart of Belfast and is a joint venture between the city council and social enterprise GLL.
Formerly a food court, the 1,000sqm site has been transformed into an interactive, technically advanced gym featuring 110 workout stations, Prama interactive flooring, a cycle studio and a free weights area.
As a former retail unit, the Better Gym building required specialist solutions to ensure acoustic comfort not only for gym members, but for people occupying neighbouring buildings.
Leisure facilities such as gyms generate noise and vibration from music, free weights and medicine balls, and machinery such as treadmills and spinning bikes, as well as the voices of instructors and participants. Gyms need to be high quality acoustic environments, offering good speech intelligibility between instructors and members, whether exercising individually or in a group class. However, music is also considered a great motivator by those exercising, so it’s important to have a soundscape that accommodates music too. Ecophon’s Andrew Acheson explained how a good acoustic environment was achieved using Ecophon products.
“The challenge we faced at Better Gym Belfast was to create the right look, in keeping with Better Gym’s modern image, while ensuring that the right amount of sound absorption was included in the design to maximise the acoustic comfort and wellbeing for everybody using the facilities.”
One of the solutions were Ecophon Solo Baffles. Offering absorption class A, Ecophon Solo Baffles allow designers creative freedom, so offer a practical acoustic solution with great aesthetic appeal.
Andrew added, “Ecophon was involved from the early design stage of the project to ensure that the unique arrangement and colours of the Solo baffles envisioned by the design team could be achieved on site. We worked closely with CCL Interiors to deliver the project to completion.”
The Ecophon Hygiene Meditec E and Dombra DS solutions were also incorporated into the design. The Ecophon Hygiene Meditec E solution is a wall-to-wall, sound absorbing ceiling system suitable for dry environments where disinfection or cleaning is necessary on a regular basis.
Ecophon Sombra Ds is suitable for applications requiring a dark ceiling. It has low light reflection and a concealed grid and tiles that can be individually demounted.
At Better Gym Belfast, this solution is installed in suspended grid system, creating a smooth ceiling and providing good sound absorption and also incorporates a computer controlled multi-coloured lighting system in the shadow gap between the ceiling and the walls, allowing the staff to create different lighting effects for the various activities in the fitness suite.
Andrew Acheson, Area Sales Manager for NI
T: 07717 538 983
E: andrew.acheson@ecophon.co.uk
W: www.ecophon.co.uk
