Projects

Spaces that
inspire.

A padel court, a weights floor, a pilates studio or a combat gym cannot be judged from a drawing. Here are places we have designed, equipped and delivered - and what each one demanded in order to last.

Projects

What a finished project actually tells you

A page of sports facility projects shows photographs. It rarely says what matters: the clear height under the roof structure that settled the layout, the slab that had to be made good before anything could be installed, the lead time that forced the machines to be ordered before the fit-out was finished. Those constraints repeat from one site to the next, and they are what you will judge us on.

Our projects cover four families of work that have almost nothing in common. Padel courts are first a question of foundation, structure and lighting. Weights floors are a question of permissible floor loading and circulation. Pilates studios are a question of acoustics and regularity. Combat gyms are a question of surfacing and clear height. Each has its own page: our five worlds set them out one by one.

What does not change is the method. A survey of the premises before any pricing. A design that starts from how the place will be run - peak attendance, the class timetable, the business model - and not from a standard layout. Workshop manufacture for everything the catalogue does not cover. Installation by our own teams, in an order that is not improvised. And a written follow-up afterwards. Those are the four stages set out in space design, manufacturing, installation and maintenance.

A project is judged less on opening day than two years later. Joints that have not lifted, anchors that can still be inspected, wear parts that can still be sourced: that is what separates a delivered site from a successful one. Which is why we price what the equipment will consume in parts over five years at the study stage, rather than letting it be discovered at the first replacement.

Orders of magnitude, since that is always the first question. Pilates studios of six to twelve machines fit into 80 to 140 m². A full weights floor rarely drops below 300 m² without becoming unworkable at peak hours. A padel court needs 20 × 10 metres of play, more with run-offs, and height if it is covered. Combat gyms are sized by the number of people training on the mat, not by gross area. These are markers, never a rule: the survey gives the exact answer.

Finally, we do not name every client. Some prefer their facility to appear nowhere; others open in a few months and would rather not announce it. The projects shown here appear with their agreement, and the others are gladly described in conversation. If you are looking for a site that resembles yours, just ask: we will tell you what comparable work we have done, with the areas, the lead times and the budget lines.

Turnkey

From concept to completion.

Design

Needs assessment and 3D modelling of the space.
Equip

Brands and equipment chosen to fit the brief.
Install

Fitted and commissioned by our own teams.
Maintain

Servicing and upkeep, built to last.

Site by site

A few places delivered

Padel Club - Marseille

Eight indoor padel courts under an existing steel roof structure, and that structure settled everything. The clear height dictated the layout before the court structures were chosen, and the lighting had to follow the purlins rather than a theoretical plan: a badly lit covered court shows in the first match.

The floor needed full remedial work. A warehouse slab is never flat enough for padel turf: departures from level read on the bounce, and the player puts them down to the court. A budget line declared at study stage rather than discovered mid-build.

A clubhouse, changing rooms and a conditioning area complete the scheme. See racket sports.

Onyx Fitness - Lyon

Twelve hundred square metres over two levels. The permissible loading of the slab governed the whole layout: free weights and racks at ground level, selectorised machines and cardio upstairs. Reversing the two would have called for strengthening out of all proportion to the project.

Separating the uses was most of the work. A bar dropped downstairs must not be heard in the studio above: layout, floor thickness, isolation. Equipment cannot help with that.

Two stations and all the storage were drawn to size then produced in our workshop. Equipment by Shua, flooring by Gerflor.

Studio Pilates - Cannes

Ten reformers in a unit adjoining a shop. Acoustics were dealt with before anything else: a studio you can hear is a studio people leave. Floor isolation, lining to the party walls, an entrance lobby.

The spacing between machines decides real capacity. We held the spacing and refused the eleventh station: that is an argument to have over the drawing, never on installation day.

Machines and consoles by Carmin, on six of the ten stations.

Arena Fight Club - Bordeaux

Six hundred square metres: a ring, two cages, a mat area and a bag zone. Each discipline needs its own surface, and the four are not laid the same way.

The bags hang from a free-standing frame rather than from the roof structure: the forces of a strike are not carried like a static load, and the frame cost less than the strengthening it avoided.

Roll-out mats by Dollamur, cage built in our workshop to the dimensions of the room. See combat sports.

Riviera Padel - Nice

Six courts, four of them covered, and a clubhouse. Outdoors, drainage comes before everything: a court that does not dry is a court nobody books, and reworking it after the turf is laid means lifting the lot.

The lighting had to live with the neighbours - shielded floodlights, colour temperatures chosen to limit spill towards housing. For a club playing until eleven at night, that decides the opening hours.

The programme was built backwards from the season: long-lead items were committed before the shell was finished. See delivery.

Hyrox box - Lille

An eight-hundred square metre gym reworked to host Hyrox. It was not a purchase but a floor plan: it needed a usable running loop and identical stations in sufficient number, which the original layout ruled out.

The rig was drawn to size, between two columns the catalogue ignored. The drop zone got its dedicated floor and its isolation, the gym sharing a wall with offices.

Rig and stations by Infinite Sport. See fitness and cross-training.

Municipal sports hall - Amiens

Full floor replacement in a 1,100 m² school sports hall, delivered over the summer holidays. The date was not negotiable: the start of term is a date, not an objective.

Residual moisture in the slab required an extra week's wait, allowed for in the programme rather than suffered. A covering laid on a damp substrate blisters, and no warranty covers it.

Line markings were ranked against the clubs' real timetable rather than the list of possible sports. Flooring by Gerflor, see multi-sports spaces.

Saint-Quentin park playground - Beauvais

A multi-age public playground replaced in full: the original structures were no longer compliant and the bark surfacing no longer matched the fall height of equipment added later.

Two zones rather than a compromise: toddlers on one side, older children on the other, with a continuous poured surface navigable by wheelchair and paths that serve the equipment, not just the perimeter.

Structures by Hags, furniture and shelter by Extebois. See playgrounds.

Les Tilleuls outdoor games area - Creil

An open-access games area in a social housing district. The issue was not the pitch but what surrounds it: ball-stop fencing, sightlines from the flats, and hours of use no set of rules will enforce.

The surface was chosen for real versatility - football then basketball, in that order - rather than for a catalogue figure. The acoustics of the ball-stop fencing were dealt with, which is rarely done and changes everything for the neighbours.

See multi-sports spaces.

Squash club - Rouen

Four squash courts refurbished in a building from the eighties. The walls were still good, the floor and the lighting were not - that was the trade-off we put, rather than stripping everything out.

Lighting a squash court is a subject in itself: it has to light without dazzling a player looking up, and without casting a shadow on the service line.

See racket sports and maintenance.

Municipal dojo - Compiègne

A dojo shared between four clubs, which do not teach the same disciplines and do not need the same mat thickness. The trade-off was made on each one's share of the timetable, not on seniority.

Roll-out mats free the hall for other uses during the day: that is what decided the council, and what a fixed mat ruled out.

Mats and wall padding by Dollamur. See combat sports.

Pilates studio - Montreal

Our first studio delivered from the Canadian base. Twelve reformers, in a first-floor unit whose slab needed a more thorough survey than expected.

Cold changes two things: the acclimatisation time for the coverings, and the ventilation of a studio where people sweat in winter with the windows shut. Both were dealt with on the drawing.

Machines and consoles by Carmin.

Fitness club - Pointe-à-Pitre

A 450 m² floor in a tropical climate, which moves the problem: humidity and salt attack chrome and cables far faster than on the mainland.

The equipment was chosen for that, and the maintenance schedule tightened accordingly - stated at quotation stage rather than discovered at the first corrosion.

Equipment by Shua. See maintenance.

School sports pitch - Senlis

A secondary school sports pitch resurfaced over the spring holidays, with a three-week window and no possibility of overrun.

The outdoor surface imposed its own weather conditions: laying was put back four days, absorbed by the margin built into the programme. Without that margin, term would have started on a building site.

See multi-sports spaces and delivery.

Cross-training box - Reims

A former industrial hall, and exactly the case where the catalogue has no answer: columns every six metres, a roof structure to check, and a magnificent height no standard rig exploited.

The rig was drawn around the columns rather than against them, which freed up twenty square metres of usable floor that the original layout was losing.

Rig by Infinite Sport, built in our workshop. See product design.

Inclusive playground - Chantilly

A playground designed from the outset to be navigable by wheelchair, which changes the whole project and not just one item: continuous poured surfacing, paths that serve the equipment, accessible items distributed rather than grouped.

The basket swing and the sand play at wheelchair height are the two items that show; the surface is the one that decides, and it is the line projects cut first.

Structures by Hags, furniture by Extebois. See playgrounds.

Good to know

Frequently asked questions

Can I visit one of your projects?

Often, yes, and we recommend it before signing anything: a photograph conveys neither the acoustics, nor the circulation, nor what the place feels like on entering. It depends on the operator, whom we ask case by case.

Tell us the type of facility and the area, and we will look for the site closest to your project rather than the most flattering one.

How long does a project take?

Three to eight months between sign-off and opening, depending on the family of work. Padel courts and combat gyms sit at the lower end; a full weights floor or a multi-activity club occupies the upper end.

It is almost never installation that sets the date, but procurement and the building works. We therefore build the programme backwards from your commercial opening date, committing the long-lead items first.

Do you work everywhere, or only around Beauvais?

We work across mainland France from our Beauvais site, and internationally from our Canadian base.

For a distant site the organisation changes more than the price: we group visits, prepare more in the workshop and reduce the number of trips. It is a constraint on method, not an automatic surcharge.

Do you use subcontractors?

Design, manufacture of bespoke parts and installation of the sports equipment are done by our own teams. That is what lets us answer for a defect without passing the question to someone else.

The building trades - electrics, ventilation, partitions, structure - are handled by partner firms that we coordinate. We tell you who does what at quotation stage, because that is what determines whom you call the day something goes wrong.

A project like one of these?

Tell us about the premises, the activity you have in mind and the opening date you are working to. We will tell you what is possible, what will need remedial work, and what it implies for the programme.

Talk about my project

Spaces thatinspire.