Author: Sampo Pajulampi

The design of the gym is limited by many factors. The most important are the requirements of the sport, the dimensions and technical solutions of the building, and the requirements of the authorities. Of course, the resources available to implement the space also define the implementation. Based on these factors, planning can easily develop too unilaterally. Since resources are limited during the construction and operation phase, the aim is to optimize the use of space until the end.

Gym?

An exercise room is an (indoor) space specially reserved for exercise. Exercise is a self-intentional physical activity that people engage in alone or in a group. Often, sports are practiced in the sports facility, where the goals and rules of the exercise are limited. It's about games that have a central bodily dimension and use the body as a tool for doing things. The gym is therefore a playground. Key issues in the game are e.g. creativity and insight within the rules of the game. It is interesting to consider how the space can promote, for example, creativity and insight.

Creativity

Creativity is combining ideas or things within a framework to create something new. This is where free doing and the things that limit it come into place. In a gym - a place of play - the framework is the rules of play and the space itself. If the space is optimized to the end without a dimension that allows free action, one of the sources of the joy of play dries up.

Realization

Insight is a moment related to creativity, when things come together into a meaningful perceived whole. This can involve a skill and learning it, as well as combining different knowledge and skills. The result of an insight is a whole thought. Utilizing insight can give you a new ability. Trying, failing, refining and succeeding are key tools for bodily creativity and insight. You need enthusiasm and, on the other hand, time and space to do it. Can the space generate enthusiasm and does it enable enough? Limit enough or too much? And how can space inspire and, on the other hand, direct enthusiasm?

Insights often arise as a result of community work. Communities here can be free-form encounters in constant motion. Does the space offer suitable opportunities for people to meet and communities to form?

Mere idleness does not encourage anything, if not idleness. Things that generate inspiration are needed so that the play starts and produces something. These can be tools, challenges built into the space or structures that enable doing.

A sense of security frees you to fail

An important aspect of creativity is safety. In order for creativity to be unleashed, there must be an opportunity to make mistakes and draw false conclusions. In terms of space, this can mean physical safety or a safe atmosphere that allows failures and mistakes. In space planning, this means not only safe structures, for example visual barriers and quiet spaces, thanks to which you can test new things.

The color and light design of the space should create a suitable atmosphere and distractions should be eliminated.

Guided exercise provides tools for creativity

Guided exercise is easy to see as the opposite of creative and free exercise. However, guided exercise can provide more of the blocks from which to build something new. In addition, it can be used to effectively frame the field of activity and teach a common language within which creativity is implemented.

The purpose of the guided exercises is not only to teach skills, but to transfer the entire culture of doing things. It would be important that teaching takes into account the requirements of self-directed learning and the knowledge and skills it requires. In addition, the central goal of group training is to inspire self-directed learning and training. A space that works here can be a support, when the transition from being guided to self-activity is easy due to the circumstances.

Return to the sports field - and decades ago

The sports field is the El Dorado of Finnish sporting success, the mythical golden city. When you look at it in the light of the above consideration, you can't help but notice how it is the perfect place for physical activity and its development into a sport. The sports field is a free space open to everyone, with ready-built opportunities for competition in running, throwing and jumping. In addition, the large open space in the middle enables ball games and, for example, hippie games.

The space is very flexible. Running can be practiced not only on the track, but also on the grass and e.g. jumps even in the stands. Several people or groups can train or just hang out in the area of the field. Idleness easily turns into something to do when others inspire you, or it turns into encouraging others. The hero of one's field creates one incentive to strive for better results and victories.

Of course, a sports field requires care, but the real resource problems are encountered when the sports field is taken indoors. Either the costs are huge or the functions have to be separated into separate premises. Here comes a challenge and a big question. How to get enough income from the sports facility while maintaining an enabling environment? And how to better combine guided exercise and free activities.

Keilahalli - modern service as a business

Moving towards this time, leaving the sports field behind, we stop at the bowling alley. Its environment is defined by commercially produced services, enjoying yourself together and ease. A bowling alley is not much different from, for example, a cafe or a bar, where we gather to be together. In the case of the bowling alley, only gathering takes place during physical activities. Bowling is a sport that does not require strong physical qualities, speed, strength and endurance. It is easy to get to the hall by public or private transport, it is located in a busy place near a traffic intersection, while the sports field sighs its emptiness on the edge of the city.

Partial services are purchased individually. Spending is having fun and vice versa. As a space, the bowling alley is quite compact and by investing in additional services, the capital invested can even be made to produce quite well.

Digital age

Even if you don't physically play sports in the digital world, play is at the core of the entire game culture. It can even be said to be at the core of digital culture, for example trolling can be seen as a kind of play.

Everything is characterized by ease. Even if the game itself is difficult, acquiring it has been made as simple as possible. Money moves, although it is not always clear from where to where. Various episode-based subscription services, buying additional services for free platforms and advertising financing are probably more common ways of earning. However, money and how to make it is obviously important because they are always at the center of discussions. In the same way that sports fields are talked about as investments in well-being and the benefits brought by exercise, when discussing digital environments, the logic of earning is not ignored.

Digital environments often aim to create the illusion of freedom, even if the framework for doing things is very strict.

An interesting direction in terms of sports space is solutions that loosen the interface between the digital and the real world, such as games that require physical effort or training augmented with digital or virtual reality elements.

What a taekwondo gym can be

A taekwondo gym can be a passive box with a taekwondo mat. Or it can be an inspiring environment to work and enjoy. The financial strain caused by the space and its comfort and excitement should not be simply juxtaposed in the planning phase. When the space feeds enthusiasm, it creates the conditions for economically sustainable operations.

So what is concretely needed to fuel creativity and enthusiasm:

• Suitable safe spaces for meetings and voluntary work together or alone, in practice this requires a great adaptability of the spaces so as not to conflict with the other goals of the hall.
• Exciting tools and things to do together and alone.
• Possibly innovations for the digital interface.
• The contents of guided training should support and provide tools for self-directed work and vice versa.
• Safe spaces to try things you don't know yet.
• Rooms where you can be at peace, open space where you can work together.
• Meaningful placement of equipment and easy usability, availability and usability in training.

The list doesn't seem to differ much from the playground design criteria.