Whilst changing rooms clearly serve a specific purpose within a facility, you’ll often find that visitors’ needs and expectations vary, and that’s why it’s key to create a locker and changing room area that meets the contrasting requirements of your users.
This blog details how accessibility, maximising footprint, and custom solutions combine to create a space that suits a variety of needs, using examples from some of our showcase installations across a wide range of sectors, including traditional gyms, boutique and specialist sports gyms, multi-use sports facilities, corporate sports facilities and luxury hotels and spas.
Recognising that different user groups have different needs can impact your facility’s layout in a number of ways, including the size of the lockers.
Having a variety of different sized lockers allows you to maximise the space available, ensuring you have an optimal number of lockers and optimal user satisfaction.
Whilst some people will only need a smaller standard size locker, others may require larger lockers to fit equipment and gym bags, or to hang clothes.
This can be done with either a mixture of tiered lockers, as shown in our installation at the Majestic Hilton Hotel & Spa, or by simply having varied sized lockers in each row, as was the case in the design and install we completed at Zone10 at the Warner Bro. Studios Leavesden, after being procured for the project by LIFTD Design.
Ensuring your facilities are accessible for all your users and their preferences is also an essential part of locker and changing room designs.
Locking mechanisms are an often overlooked aspect, but making the wrong decision or failing to account for different user groups can lead to an unnecessary barrier in the accessibility of the lockers, and have a negative impact on your visitors’ experiences.
Recent installations at Zone10 Warner Bros Studio and across Wolverhampton’s WV Active multi-sports facilities have kept this in mind, and provided multiple options for locks to suit any user’s typical behaviour and preferences.
Users at Zone10 have the choice of an app or keypad unlock, ensuring everyone can still easily access their lockers, regardless of whether they prefer to keep their phone in their locker or carry it with them during their workout.
Similarly, WV Active gives users at each of their sites the choice of padlock or coin lockers, ensuring people who don’t typically carry cash have the same level of access as those who do.
We’ve also worked with other facilities including the Majestic Hilton Hotel & Spa and UFC GYMS UK to meet their locking mechanism requirements, with auto-unlock functionality to combat issues with people leaving things in lockers overnight and unnecessarily taking up locker space.
Accessibility considerations also extend to changing facilities, with many facilities’ changing rooms, including Hailsham Leisure Centre and COACH GYMS + Surge Padel, offering private change cubicles, giving everyone the option of a safe space they feel comfortable changing in.
End-users’ different needs vary not just from person to person, but also from facility to facility. We will work with you to create custom solutions that work for you and your users, to ensure you are providing the best possible service.
Whether this is a unique layout and design to meet the brief of a ‘serene, tranquil space’ from our Zone10 installation, additional units such as a ‘Staron-topped Towel Drop Unit’ at the Majestic Hilton Hotel & Spa or incorporating LED lighting in-line with the design of the gym floor to extend the facility’s quality look and feel at New Age Fitness Wishaw, we will support you to meet both your and your end-users requirements, needs and wants.
Despite the contrasting needs of different facilities and within a facility, Safe Space Lockers will always maintain a consistent approach of working with you to find the best solutions with the best quality products.
To find out more about our comprehensive locker and changing room solutions, whatever the size and scale of your project, please enquire now and a member of our team will be in touch to support you.
