A clearly demarcated path guards against chaotic fitness center circulation.
By design, department stores create a cluttered floor that keeps shoppers browsing. The same should not hold in fitness centers, where several approaches can be taken to make the circulation less chaotic. The University of Nevada- Las Vegas Student Recreation and Wellness Center, for example, uses colored, shock-absorbent weight room flooring to lay down a wide gray and red-bordered circulation path that bisects the room's strength-training space, and continues nearly all the way around the central help desk and storage area. Designers Hastings & Chivetta Architects Inc. of St. Louis specified a soffit with recessed lighting to further accentuate the passageway. Taken together, the floor and ceiling visually break up the space, and clearly point out its egress. Although strength equipment resting within the checkerboard pattern encroaches in several places, the clearly demarcated path guards against that Macy's-style "no way out" feel.
