Private Gymnasium Pavilion

Tasked with making exercise a pleasurable experience for the client … the team have elevated this private gym and juice bar to an experience where all the senses are energised; by this space that seamlessly merges with the landscape and makes exercise an all-encompassing activity.
Set within a sophisticated landscape of other folly type structures in a sumptuous Gentlemanly garden landscape, at the foot of the Constantia Nek mountain.
Nestled under the dappled light of many mature Oak trees, the gym is perched upon a heavy stone clad and stippled pigmented plaster base wall that stretches into the landscape and helps define the Garden’s many terraces that tumble down the mountainside. This base equally delineates the car park forecourt realm from the upper tranquillity of the garden. Within this base is a carefully crafted self-contained guest suite.
The gym can be accessed via this guest suite up an elaborate circular timber staircase that feels as if you are rising up within one of the many oak trees.
The gym can also be entered via the water terraces in the garden that span from the Owners’ tree house, along a bridge like structure that winds through the lush foliage of the garden. The gym itself in contrast to the base is an elegantly crafted lightweight timber shrouded structure with a roof that effortlessly floats above.
The piquant smell of the cedar timber works well with the roof plane that has been masterly crafted with subtle inflictions to infer to specific mountain and garden views, allowing filtered light through the established Oak trees to softly enter the buildings clere-storey windows and grace the gym studio.
Via large openings to the garden the entire gym opens to the garden where the boundaries are blurred, sitting alongside a network of dark mountain water filled pools. These water-lily filled ponds create a cooling effect to the side of the gym-studio. As if the timber cladding is not enough the gym instruments and equipment have been specially ordered for their Swedish like timber componentry and detailing that completes the entire experience. The long term planning of the estate has also been for-seen where if extra accommodation is required, the gym can easily be converted into a living-dining and kitchen area with the guest suite below as the bedroom.
This enigmatic and delightful structure can only be a joy to exercise within and we deem it worthy of a regional Award for Architecture.