"NEW" 3 in 1: Neighbor, Environment and Wheelchair Friendly Gym

James Delevin's "NEW", or my acronym for "Neighbor, Environment and Wheelchair" friendly gym was a really challenging project for me that I took head on to produce a gym that met all 3 of the design requests. I am a middle school student that really enjoys mechanical items. Designing buildings is not my strong suit, but I have a passion for innovation. This skill set of mine was put into use throughout the building, combining multiple concepts and inventions to balance each of the design requirements. As mentioned in the challenge, sacrificing one design element for another was very tough because I had to choose one thing over another.

To start with, before I even opened up Tinkercad, I needed to come up with a rough sketch for what I was aiming to achieve. In order to maximize my chances for success, I annotated my original drawing and then drew it on an iPad to add color. Doing this helped me visualize what I wanted my final product to be when I was working. In a way, it could be a reference while you are making the gym.

When I first started this project, I had a million different ideas for what the gym could be. Organizing those ideas was very difficult, so I started by picking the ideas that I liked most and putting them into a piece of paper split into 3 sections. After that, I took those ideas and put them into a triple Venn Diagram to give me another way of seeing which elements I had and wanted to use. Because I couldn't use every design element in the diagram, I prioritized the elements that were in the overlapped areas because they would be beneficial in more than one way. After organizing all of the elements in this way, I could then choose which I wanted to include.

For James' gym, I wanted to make a more modern, up to date style gym. After doing some research on what modern style buildings looked like, I found that they generally were very geometric with lots of right angles. Although this style of building is interesting, I decided I wanted to spice things up; I added curved outside supports, curved roof pieces and a curved window above the main entrance. After playing around with the design for a while, I decided it worked quite nicely actually!

When entering the building, I want the members or guests' first impression to be a good one. I decided to add high ceilings to give a luxurious and open feel to the gym. Creating the high ceilings also makes the users feel less cramped in the gym. The front desk is where you can speak with one of the lovely staff to get a membership or if you have any questions or concerns. You can enter the gym using one of your keycards at the electronic gates.

At the gyms that I have been to, I have taken note that they all have high ceilings and large windows. To me, this open concept makes me feel like I'm swimming outside in the open, and less of the enclosed, cramp feeling. Thinking it a good idea to do as the professionals, I incorporated the large windows and the high ceilings in my pool area. The pool is 25m long with varying depths with a hot tub along the length of it. Hot tubs are very good for when you have injured or sore muscles, and because muscles injuries won't be too uncommon at the gym, it seemed reasonable to include one.

At a gym, you will burn calories very quickly, and because of this you will need energy (especially protein). Forget a snack for your intense work out? No worries - the gym has got you covered. James' gym provides energy bars conveniently placed behind the check in desk. When working out, not only do you need a lot of energy, you also need a lot of water to keep you hydrated. Your body uses water and will lose some through sweat, so water bottles are provided, again conveniently placed, at the snack bar.

If you are going to go to a gym, you would expect that they have a bathroom on site so that you don't have to travel all the way back home. As a little bit of common curtesy, both Male and Female bathrooms were added. To conserve space (thus reducing the land cleared), the bathrooms also double as changing rooms. The changing rooms include three benches each to set gym bags and to use for changing. After a hot sweaty work out, or to change for swimming, a changing room is a necessity. As with all of the doors, these being no exception, the doors have self-sanitizing handles.

Whether it's building muscles, losing fat or just exercising for the sake of exercising, a weight room helps with all of those and is something all gyms should have. When you enter the building, take a left down the hallway and on your right, there should be double doors, and that is the weight room. The weight room has different sizes of weights and also has a red carpet and bench-presses. Along with this, you can enjoy the gym's beautiful back yard and the magnificent trees while working out.

Running is great for exercise - it can improve mental and physical health, improve your heart, lower stress levels and help against depression. Because of all the benefits of running, I thought it necessary to include either a treadmill or a track. I debated between the two for a while, first track, then treadmill. After weighing out the pros and cons of both, I decided that the treadmill would work best.

Treadmill Pros:

• Smaller than a track - takes up less space
• Can be used during all weather
• Less costly

Treadmill Cons:

• Uses more electricity (probably more than the solar panels will generate), so not as eco-friendly
• More cramped
• Slightly harder to use than a track - you have to change the speed settings rather than just speeding up or slowing down

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Track Pros

• Large - can fit a lot of people at once
• Outdoors - you can get fresh air
• Easier to use than a treadmill - you can slow down or speed up without having to press buttons

Track Cons

• Very Expensive
• Outdoors - Can't be used in all weather
• Large - will require more land to be purchased and will more destroy natural environment and possibly habitats than necessary

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After reviewing both the pros and cons of each, I decided that the treadmill was the best option. As you can see here, I had to make some trade offs. Because I was going to be using electricity to power the treadmills, I would probably need more energy than my solar panels generate. The rest of the electricity I would be using would most likely come from a fossil fuel burning power plant, which by using it would not help the environment. However, the track would require a lot of energy to build and possibly illuminate, on top of the fact that it would destroy more natural landscape and natural habitats. When I googled how much a track cost, I found that for a 400m track (standard size), it cost around 1 million dollars. When it comes time to finally resurface that track, it would cost about 300k. I found treadmills of varying prices, but a $2,000 treadmill looked like a good priced commercial treadmill. You could purchase about 500 treadmills of that price for the same price as a track!

After a long, exhausting workout, you might want to sit down and rest for a while. Alternatively, you just purchased a snack or have food and want somewhere to eat it. Or, you could be a coach watching your student/s swim. Or maybe you are waiting for someone to finish their swimming workout. Or..., the uses for this space are endless. As you can see this space is useful for a variety of different things. Because tables and multiple seats around them were included, you can also eat, drink and be sociable at this gym.

Although safety wasn't a part of the design requirements, I thought that I could help keep gym users safer while using the gym. One way I thought I could help keep users safe from corona is by sanitizing high touch areas (such as a door handle). A door handle is something that everyone touches when entering and exiting the gym. So, I thought that should be something that should be sanitized. Instead of using the staff's time on cleaning door handles, I thought I would research to find an alternative. Following this research, I found something called a self sanitizing door handle. This works by shining a UV light (which naturally sterilizes) through a clear cylinder, which sterilizes the bacteria. However, I do not know how long the UV light takes to fully sterilize the handle.

The electronic glass barriers at the front ensure that only people who have gym memberships enter the actual work out area. This makes sure that the gym is actually making money and people aren't using it for free. The glass barriers upstairs are to keep people from falling downstairs.

What I mean by virtual yoga is that their are tv screens that can show pre-recorded yoga classes to prevent the number of people in the room at one time. This is 100% optional, and it could be a class that you could pre book if you are more cautious about Covid. The other benefit of adding tv's into this classroom is that you can still have a yoga class even if you're instructor is absent. The reason I chose to include a yoga room is because it is good for your strength, flexibility, heart and can help with your stress levels.

At first, I had the thoughts of covering the gym in plants to help it blend into the environment. This was good because it meant planting plants, which is environmentally friendly and it helps the gym blend in. However, doing that is not the most visually attractive. I also had thoughts of making it low to the ground so that it didn't stand out as much. However, this meant clearing more land, and therefore destroying habitats. Then I had the idea of planting trees near the perimeter to help disguise the gym from the back and sides. The trees makes the area look more natural to the neighbors and have the added benefit of being eco -friendly. Because of these two benefits, I decided to add trees to the outside.

This was one of the features that was a crossover between two design elements. The Neighbor friendly part is that it helps the gym look clean, and the eco-friendly part is that it reduces the waste going to oceans. The trash cans encourage people to not just throw their trash on the floor to look bad or leave for someone else, but to play their part in keeping trash out of the oceans. However, not all waste should be disposed of as trash, but instead should be recycled to help preserve the precious natural resources we were given, which is why recycle bins have been conveniently placed around site.

This is my own idea/invention for a non electric spin bike. I wanted the spin machine to feel as much like an actual bicycle as I could to make it feel like you are riding a real bike. The front of the "bike" doesn't have a wheel, but is instead replaced with steel poles to keep it stationary. The back wheel remains the same, but under it are two metal rollers. When you turn the pedal, it turns the back wheel, which spins the rollers instead of moving you forward.

*Note: the bikes in the classroom are all one color because I designed the spin bike in a different "design" in tinkercad (I didn't have enough space in this design)*

Glass walls were my thought as to how I might make the building more "green" because it would use less electricity on lighting and therefore help reduce carbon emissions. So I thought. Yes, I was right about using windows to help reduce the amount of electricity I would need to spend on lighting, but because glass is not a great insulator, I would be using more electricity on heating and cooling. After researching if I had to include this element, or if I could supplement it with a different eco-friendly addition, I found an alternative: plant lots of plants on the building. However, as previously mentioned, plants draped on a building isn't the most appealing thing, so it was back to the drawing board. After some thinking I thought about just making thick glass, but that would be extremely expensive. Then I came across something called insulated glass. Insulated glass is two thin pieces of glass with an air gap between them (shown in the diagram I made). My gym now uses insulated glass to help reduce the amount of electricity needed to heat/cool it. An added benefit of glass is that it gives you natural light, which is very good for you, as you work out.

Playing our part in protecting the environment can be doing something as large as converting to renewable energy, to as small as picking up a piece of litter. This one is something small, but as I see it, every little thing helps. By using paper instead of the plastic, we are helping reduce the amount of litter that makes its way to the ocean. Plastic can take anywhere from 20-500 years to decompose, whereas paper only takes between 2-6 weeks to decompose! Because plastic takes so long to decompose, it will stay littering our environment for a long time. However, if paper was to make it's way to see, it's less harmful and will decompose faster. Another added benefit of paper is that it is a renewable resource.

For these two particular design elements, I was trying to reduce the amount of electricity I was using from fossil fuel burning power plants. When I was in the brainstorming process, I also thought that I could add wind turbines to add to the clean energy generated. However this presented itself with the huge problem of noise and how unappealing they look. It was hard to imagine neighbor friendly elements in the first place, so adding unappealing and noisy wind turbines would not help the cause. Then, I saw a flat empty roof just begging for something to be put on it. Solar panels seamed like the obvious choice because they are flat, generate clean electricity and are not loud.

The skylights, as well as the windows, are supposed to reduce the amount of electricity spent on lights. These provide light where the windows' light may not reach. As mentioned before, natural light is very good for you and gives you vitamin D3, which your body needs.

Both of these Eco Friendly design elements are supposed to help lower carbon emissions, in the plants case by absorbing the CO2. Locally sourced materials means that the materials that are used to build the gym are produced from close by. There are two reasons for me wanting to do this: it helps support local businesses (especially after the pandemic) and it reduces the carbon emissions that would have been made from the transport vessels. The plants (the trees, bushes and plants) are planted on site to help play our part in cleaning the air. Plants will absorb the CO2 in the air and give out Oxygen for us to breathe. Plants are essential to human life, and without them, we would perish.

In order to further help lower carbon emissions, I decided I should encourage the use of electric cars at the gym. In order to do this, I put electric car chargers available for a discounted rent strategically placed at the front of the parking lot. By putting the parking spots and chargers at the front of the parking lot, it encourages people to use electric cars because they get a parking spot close to the gym. Also because there is an electric car charger at a slightly discounted price (not too much so the gym doesn't lose money), people would drive their electric car because they see that they can get a good deal. Also the satisfaction that you are playing your part in helping the environment comes with owning an electric car.

For the final part of the design requirements, I needed to make my gym wheelchair accessible/friendly. One way that I did this was through making a ramp up to the main entrance. I know it may be obvious, but wheelchair users cannot go up stairs, at least not without extreme difficulty. Because of this, I added a ramp up from the main pathway to the front door. ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) requires that doors be 32 in. wide open for wheelchair users. Although it doesn't require all doors to be double doors, I wanted the gym to facilitate the needs of the wheelchair using members, so all of the doors in our building are double doors (32 in.).

But what would be the point of a wheelchair accessible door and entrance if they couldn't get around inside the building? That's why all of the pathways inside of the gym are large enough to accommodate a wheelchair with some passing room left. Even the electronic security gate can fit a wheelchair user through. The reason the stairs are not centered is to give wheelchair users plenty of room to pass by the stairs and get to the elevator.

Again, wheelchair users cannot go up the stairs at the entrance or the stairs we have provided to get upstairs. Here was another challenge and trade off that came up: I could build a large ramp or an elevator. I thought at first about using a ramp because it would be more eco-friendly than an elevator. However, a ramp would require a good deal of space and would be a lot more work for the wheelchair user to go up the long ramp that it would have to be. The elevator might be more costly and more power consuming, but it takes up less space and makes travelling upstairs far easier for the user. To get to the elevator, on entry, you go down the hallway to your left, down the path to the left of the stairs, then turn left to arrive at the elevator.

For the convenience of the gym's wheelchair users, their is parking for wheelchair users at the front of the parking lot. The reason for this being is that wheelchair users have to do a lot more work in order to move, and is harder on them if they have to travel far to get to the door.

Because wheelchair users are usually paralyzed from the waist down, they are still able to use their upper body. Because most users have motor function in the upper part of their body, they can use the upper part of their body to swim. They can't just swim with just the upper portion of their body (they need floats), nor can they just jump into the pool. Instead they need means to get into a pool. A ramp would be an idea that I could have included in my design, but I thought it took up a lot of swim area, didn't look good and would be way too costly. Instead, I chose to use a wheelchair lift so that the user could be lowered into the pool without having to use a large ramp.

Finally, a wheelchair user cannot use a normal size stall that most people can. To accommodate this, I added a larger stall in both the male and female bathrooms that can fit the wheelchair user comfortably. The bathroom sinks are slightly lower as well so that the wheelchair user can use them comfortably as well.

Finally, if you were getting lost with my descriptions of where things are, here are the floorplans for both the upstairs and downstairs.

Thank you for reading!