Europe’s leading health, fitness and wellness group, David Lloyd Leisure has 130 clubs across nine European countries and recently opened its 101st club in the UK, situated within the Catalyst Park in South Bicester.
Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson architects have worked with David Lloyd Leisure for over 15 years on several prestigious projects in the UK and throughout Europe, providing architecture, structural engineering and interior design services on both refurbishment and new build projects. We have also been responsible for many of the new concepts such as Blaze, Delta Studios, workstation and Spa Retreats.
To date we have completed 10 New Clubs and refurbished over 250 sites, with facilities such as 25m swimming pools (indoor and out) fitness suites, cafés and restaurants, spin and fitness studios, squash, multipurpose halls, indoor and outdoor tennis, spa Retreats, external leisure areas, children’s play facilities and many more. David Lloyd Bicester is our latest completed project that has received excellent feedback from club members.
The 6,600sqm development contains state of the art facilities that is inclusive to all members. The development includes an expansive gym, fully glazed on the south facing elevation allowing natural light to fill the gym space and the latest advanced equipment to challenge members to achieve their personal best and fitness goals.
Our architectural and interior design teams created a striking comprehensive scheme for the club, developing on the David Lloyd brand and giving each space its own individual effect while maintaining parity across the building.
At the heart of David Lloyd Bicester, the substantial clubroom provides members with the opportunity to relax, socialise and work is at the centre of the building. The generous club room comprises of zoned dining, fully licenced bar, business hub, adult lounge and dedicated family areas for little ones, containing a soft play and children’s activity spaces.
The health and wellbeing club contains a 20-metre 4-lane indoor swimming pool with an associated learner pool providing introductory shallow water to the beginner swimmer.
David Lloyd Leisure offer a large number of dedicated group exercise studios, mind & body, High Impact, Blaze(HIIT) studio and a cycling studio that all feature immersive lighting and comprehensive interiors scheme developed individually for the studios use both functionally and aesthetically.
The projects internal Spa features a Hydro pool, Heated Beds, Plunge Pool, Ice Cave, Citrus Steam, Crystal Steam, Finish Sauna, Himalayan Salt Sauna, feature showers, Deep Relax Meditation and Pod Sleep Rooms.
The whole project was an exercise in creating value where it is most vital. The interior spaces burst with rich tones and premium furnishings while the external facades are allowed to be simple materially responding to the environment with a natural and authentic timber.
Externally, David Lloyd Bicester features, Outdoor pool, Spa Garden, pool and dining terrace, kids play area, 3 covered padel courts, and 3 outdoor tennis courts.
The key focus externally is the 25 metre outdoor heated swimming pool, with heated kids pool. The associated terrace and pool are south facing to maximise the number of usable hours and enhance the value of the relax and pool area for members. The principal clubroom area and internal pool open up onto the external terrace, forming interconnecting views and linking internal/external uses. All external lighting incorporates energy efficient LED light sources. The use of hard landscaping materials defines the various functional zones of the terrace and spa garden areas.
The external Spa Garden features, a Hydro Pool, Sauna Hut and showers, Fire Pit with surround seating, loungers, Day Beds.
The three outdoor Tennis courts are covered by an inflatable air dome. The permanent air dome provides members with the opportunity to play day or night and more importantly in all weather. The curved shape of the dome and its maximum height are designed specifically to cater for LTA requirements based on court play and ball curvature.
Our architectural ethos is to innovate and promote sustainable building practice. Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson architects utilises a “fabric first” approach to sustainability/low energy initiatives over more expensive, less renewable mechanical or electrical building services. This helps to reduce capital and operational costs, improve energy efficiency, and reduce carbon emissions.
The club has been precisely detailed by our architects to achieve a well-insulated building to maximise air tightness and reduce heat loss. Careful space planning using regulatory guidelines to increase efficiency by limiting circulation spaces and maximise active spaces.
The footprint of the development has been meticulously considered, to minimise the amount of energy required to heat/cool the space. Low energy LED fittings have been used throughout the club. The design of the development at Bicester considers the building orientation to take advantage and maximise the solar gain, natural daylight and reduces the need for artificial lighting. Energy is generated from CHP (Combined Heat and Power). A highly efficient process that captures and utilises the heat that is a by-product of the electricity generation process.
Architecturally the form of the building is derived from both the building’s function and the spatial requirements of the internal areas. Variation in external materials allows us to break up the volume of the building, to bring the building down to a more human scale. Use of the timber cladding positioned above the entrance stand in relief to the grey cladding ensuring the entrance is easily visible from the site entrance, helping to guide visitors to their destination. The choice of timber is also to provide and more naturalistic feel to soften the buildings façade. It is key to provide visual interest on a building of this scale, architecturally the use of varied and contemporary teal toned cladding provides visual excitement in the south elevation.
Glazing is used as a tool for both breaking up the form of the building but also for diminishing the barrier between internal and external.
By placing glazing at ground level on the southern facade, the boundary between the internal lounge and external terrace, as well as the internal and external pools, is blurred and movement is encouraged between them. The activities seen inside are an advertisement for the club and encourage users outside to explore the possible activities inside. Glazing is used extensively in areas of maximum activity within the building and used sparingly elsewhere, to give the building a feeling of vibrant activity.
David Lloyd, Bicester was given the green light by Cherwell District Council and is part of the larger, 500,000 sq ft, Catalyst Bicester Park. The Catalyst Park provides workspace for up to 1,750 new jobs. The four newly opened technology buildings range in size from 10,000 sq ft to 22,000 sq ft.
David Lloyd Bicester will have a full team of 90 staff, including 10 personal trainers all of which have been catered for with offices and breakout zones.
Jack Phillips from David Lloyd, Bicester’s club manager said when talking at the club opening “We’ve had such a positive reaction from our new members who are thrilled with the stunning facilities at the club and wide variety of activities on offer for all ages. David Lloyd Clubs is so much more than a gym, it’s a social and wellbeing space to meet, work out and enjoy life, and we look forward to welcoming more new members to the David Lloyd Bicester family.”
About Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson Architects & Engineers.
Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson is a leading sports and leisure facility architect, based in Sheffield. We work nationally and internationally in the health and wellbeing sector with varied clients. We collaborate with recognised experts, governing bodies and leisure operators to ensure our facilities meet the requirements for health and wellbeing, training, competition, socialising and education in fitness and leisure. Our success as a practice is based on the talents and expertise of our teams. We are committed to on-going evaluation and improvement in the quality of our designs and technical capabilities. We invest in the process of continuous professional development for the benefit of our staff, our company and our clients.
Our extensive experience in sports and leisure has provided us and our clients with the unique insight of significant revenue generators that when integrated into our projects are then utilized to reduce the principal investment and life-cycle costs of our architectural and engineering developments.
We have worked on major sporting venues including football and rugby clubs, golf driving ranges, sports centres and a London Olympic international training venue. Additionally we have worked on several restaurants and cafés, hotels/spas and have been instrumental in the design development of a nationwide chain of children’s’ adventure & activity centres.
Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson were implementation architects and interior/branding designers for the University of Surrey’s main sports facility. The £17 million scheme included a multi-purpose sports hall, changing facility, bar/restaurant, 50m Olympic swimming pool, dance studio, gym, climbing wall, outdoor courts and all weather pitches with external changing facilities.
Our reputation for successfully combining high quality architectural design with commercially viable solutions has helped us to become one of the leading consultants in the UK health and fitness market. The quality of our design service is reflected in the fact that we have several well established and long term relationships with major leisure operators.