Safety First
The Universal Athletic Club safeguards 90,000 square feet of space
“The most effective way to make sure safety issues are tackled appropriately is to hire a seasoned architect with substantial experience in the health club arena,” insists Larry Conner, the manager of the Stone Creek Club and Spa, in Covington, Louisiana. “I’ve worked with nonclub architects at other clubs, and they simply don’t understand the particulars of this industry.” Stone Creek, built two years ago, is a 52,000-square-foot facility, situated on 15 acres, that serves more than 3,500 members. All architects are familiar with basic safety guidelines, but few are knowledgeable about the nuances of club operation. “Let’s face it,” says Bryan Dunkleberger, a principal in S3 Design, in Quincy, Massachusetts. “People with wet feet generally don’t walk around in a towel in a museum’s exhibition halls. And they don’t go to the restaurant to lift 150-pound hamburgers over their heads.”
Flow, fluids, fresh air
“Architecture and design are realistic disciplines that focus on the member experience, and safety is always the first and foremost consideration.”
Since bodies-in-motion are what create problems, avoiding accidents begins with a sensible traffic-flow pattern. Wide, clearly defined circulation pathways allow members to enter and exit easily, without bumping into one another or creating bottlenecks, and an open design allows staff to observe and quickly react to situations as they develop. “Club operators frequently underestimate what a simple and efficient circulation path can do for them,” says Dunkleberger. “We think of these as the highways inside of a club.” Moving into other areas of the club, things become a bit trickier. Slips and falls cause the majority of accidents, and many of them occur in a club’s wet areas—locker rooms, showers, steam room, Jacuzzi, bathroom, and swimming pool. Most falls can be prevented by paying attention to the composition and condition of what’s underfoot. Tile in wet areas should be no more than four square inches with sanded grout that has a high coefficient of friction, suggests Steve Tharrett, the presi- dent of Club Industry Consulting, an industry consultancy based in Highland Village, Texas.
Older facilities that didn’t utilize small tiles may have to compensate with mats, but those can introduce other risks.
“Mats are hazardous,” points out Conner. “They may fray or have a lip on them, which may cause trips, and they’re not sanitary.” Floors should be kept as dry as possible, and ones that are sloped and have multiple drains prevent water from pooling in one spot.
Careful consideration should be given to areas that transition from wet to dry. Doni Visani, a senior principal at Ohlson Lavoie Collaborative Design, in Denver, advises, “Contain the wet zone.” Making the transition space as long as possible, he says, will prevent water from being tracked where it’s not wanted. To that end, toilets and showers should be placed deep inside the locker room, so that, by the time some- one reaches a dry area, most of the water is off their feet.
A club’s pool area raises additional safety concerns, relating to pool depth, water temperature, drains,
filtration systems, and chemicals. The temperature in both the pool and hot tubs needs to be checked automatically to ensure that it never exceeds 102 degrees F., which can be policed by an automatic
50 Club Business Internat ional | NOVEMBER 2011 |
ihrsa.org
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