CASE STUDY
Acoustic Gym Floor -Blackfriars Circus 

Client: Barratt London
Project: Blackfriars Circus
Products Specified: BOK-Systems Acoustic Sub System AS20, BOK Pro4 rubber rolls, LVT Plank.

Project Details:
Residential developers are now choosing to provide apartment tenants with ‘living experiences’ as opposed to simply places to live. This can include beautifully appointed front of house, manned concierge desks, work spaces, cinema rooms, tranquil gardens, ‘private dining’ and of course, the luxury apartment staple – The gym.

Years ago, the resident’s gym were small rooms with token cycle, treadmill and multi-gym. Nowadays the gym can cover spaces of 1,500 – 3,000 sq. ft and have specialist lifting areas, rigs, high end fitness equipment, studios, lockers and consultation rooms. The design is a kin to a five-star private members club however, with this growth in size, equipment and number of residents now using the gym, the risk of noise has increased.

Once such project at a development in Blackfriars, London took many of these considerations in to account prior to the gym fit out. The gym design had a certain amount of flexibility due to the construction of the gym floor; the specification was a BOK-System ‘AS20’.

BOK-AS20 is an acoustic multi level sub floor system that isolates the finished gym floor from the rest of the building (walls, columns, substrate) thus reducing the risk of vibrations or sound transfer from the gym space in to the rest of the building. It has been lab tested and results showed the system achieved 20Hz on natural frequency. Key benefits include:

• Acoustic system providing very high levels of performance (20Hz)
• Build Program Accelerator (BPA) installation with no screed requirement saving time and build cost.
• Multi level system allows differing finished floor thicknesses to be finished level across gym.
• Power, data and services channelled below system hiding unsightly services.
• Insulation can be incorporated to meet thermal performance targets.
• System provides good levels of % force reduction for functional training and weight drop safety
• Compatible with underfloor heating.

BOK-AS20 set out with power and data cables tracked beneath

The following are some examples of activities that can potentially generate issues of noise for the gym owner/ operator through neighbour complaints:

• Free-weights – high impact noise from heavy equipment
• Cardio-Vascular Machines (CV) – Treadmills in simultaneous use can have a ‘whacker’ effect on the gym floor.
• Group Exercise Classes – some classes have numbers of participants dropping barbells in unison often with high music levels.
• Fixed Resistance Machines – can generate high noise levels from weights stacks.