Mosaic Chalk Farm | gym & dance studios

A new kind of sociable fitness with light-filled studios and a fresh finish inspired by the feeling of dancing in the street or cycling downhill; not your usual gym.

The Fitness Mosaic

The Fitness Mosaic
Chalk Farm NW1

Concept | Planning | Detail | Specification | Services co-ordination | Furniture | Site supervision

Asked to renovate an existing gym and reinvent the experience, we looked first at the typical offer: dark, often below-ground spaces with no visible connection between or into studios, exercise portrayed as something to be endured.

In response our concept started with Cyd Charisse in Bandwagon giving a masterclass in dance workout, and trying to catch the pure pleasure in powerful movement and happy exhaustion.

The building has been stripped back to reveal an industrial shell with only the minimum added to make rooms work flexibly and functionally: timber floors, white walls, birch ply panelling, restored metal staircases and Crittal roof lights, with integrated graphics to get you from A to B. 

Open circulation and top-lit stairs take you from juice bar up to interconnected studios & communal spaces, on the way out changing rooms are similarly straightforward: the usual maze of lockers is replaced by bright, streamlined space and wake-up yellow laminate peg panels - easy, uncluttered, smart, everything you need to get on with the day.

The opposite of the usual black basement and a reason to return.

Photography Gareth Gardner