The Bruin Fitness Center is a 15,000 square-foot facility.  It features open-plan cardio, strength, and stretching zones tied together by a central circulation spine for an easy-to-navigate layout.

The fitness center occupies what was once parking and storage for campus housing maintenance staff.  Extensive mechanical equipment in the existing space had to be considered, worked around, protected, and at times relocated in order to make this programmatic shift possible.  The material palette blends some of the raw materiality of the parking garage’s existing ducts, plumbing, and concrete with the elegant and sustainable material choices of the Carnesale dining hall above.

Since the fitness center is partially submerged with limited access to daylight, the fitness center is oriented towards the major opening of the space: a large, operable glass garage door.  The creative use of high quality artificial lighting, graphic wallpapers, and color throughout help to ensure that the facility never feels like a basement.