Publicly Accessible Buildings

Work begins on luxury health club

BDK Architects scheme applauded by Jersey Architecture Commission

by Paul Harding BA DipArch RIBA 25 October 2010 Interior
The architectural concept adopted for the new St Brelade's Bay Hotel Health & Fitness Club is a sleek Pavilion box. Strong horizontal lines traverse the interior, within which the three key zones are expressed using a common language but adopting different external cladding materials.

As the exiting car park used by local Club members covers the entire site area, the Club has been elevated to float on stilts above car parking level. Massing of the overall building was mitigated by expressing the principal gym and studio spaces as one volume with the indoor pool as a second volume, between which are subsidiary service and changing spaces connecting the two spaces.

The gym and studio are flat roofed, with overhanging eaves shading clerestory windows to give good internal natural lighting levels. Clad in high quality architectural white precast concrete cladding panels with cloth textured finish, the roofs are modulated into a grid by separating the panels with recessed gunmetal grey metal channels.

A large projecting bay window enveloping the south-east corner provides spectacular views from inside the gym across St Brelade's Bay vista. Subsidiary service spaces are simply enclosed in white silicone render connecting and unifying both main components, with a balcony breaking out through the Bar / Cafe picture windows providing direct access to the Hotel's gardens.

Overlooking the verdant Hotel's gardens on opposite side of the building sits the other principal volume containing the indoor swimming pool. This has been differently expressed with a zinc pitched roof and vertical cedar boarding, reflecting it's forest-like position next to the wooded cotil at rear of Hotel.


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