Studios and gyms
A studio or a gym asks more of a building than a desk does. The floor has to take a kiln or a loaded rack, the walls may have to keep a drum kit in, and the ceiling has to clear whatever you’re lifting. Tell us what’s going in it and we design from there.
The details
Our standard floor takes furniture and a treadmill without complaint. For a loaded squat rack, a kiln or an upright piano we add joists and put extra ground screws under the load. It goes into your fixed quote and it’s rarely much.
Our rooms are 2.5 m high outside, which leaves about 2.1 m inside. That’s fine for a rower, a bike, a bench and most rack work. If you want to press a bar overhead standing up, say so: we can build taller, though anything over 2.5 m within two metres of a boundary needs planning permission.
The acoustic upgrade at £1,100 puts denser insulation and a second layer of plasterboard in the walls, floor and roof. It won’t make a drum kit silent. It will bring it down to about the level of next door’s television.
For painting and making, even light matters more than a view. We can face the glazing north, set an extra window at bench height for £650, or keep a whole wall blank for canvases.
A kiln or a sauna heater needs a circuit of its own; give us the rating and our electrician sizes the cable. A sink with cold water is simple if the room is near the house. A toilet and basin is £4,800.
A gym needs cooling more than heating. The heating and cooling unit at £1,650 does both, and bifold doors let you open the whole front on a warm evening.
Sizes
Work out what has to fit, then add a metre to walk round it. These are the sizes we build most often for studios and gyms.
| What goes in it | Room | Size | Price | Calculator |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A rower or bike, a bench and a mat | The Study | 4.0 × 3.0 m | from £21,700 | Price it: A rower or bike, a bench and a mat, 4.0 × 3.0 m |
| A wheel or easel, a table and storage | Made to order | 4.6 × 3.0 m | from £24,300 | Price it: A wheel or easel, a table and storage, 4.6 × 3.0 m |
| A rack, a bench and room to move | Made to order | 4.4 × 3.4 m | from £26,000 | Price it: A rack, a bench and room to move, 4.4 × 3.4 m |
| A studio for two, or a band | The Studio | 5.4 × 3.6 m | from £32,700 | Price it: A studio for two, or a band, 5.4 × 3.6 m |
A worked example
A 4.4 × 3.4 m room in composite cladding with the heating and cooling unit: space for a rack, a bench and a rower. At 14.96 m² it stays just under the size where building regulations start to apply.
Guide price
£27,800 to £30,700
From 4% below the total to 6% above it, to the nearest £100. It includes VAT, foundations, electrics and installation, and it’s about 10 working days on site.
Past builds
Each of these started with a design visit and a drawing, and the ones we haven’t photographed are still shown that way. The gallery has all ten, and you can filter it by what the room is used for.
Gym · 5.0 × 3.0 m · Composite · 2024
Composite boards and stainless fixings, in a garden that takes the wind straight off the sea. The roof slopes one way to shed it, which made the room tall enough to need planning permission. We applied, and the rower got a rooflight.
Studio · 5.4 × 3.6 m · Cedar · 2023
The garden drops half a metre, so the room and its deck stand on ground screws and nothing was dug out. It’s far enough from every boundary to have a pitched roof, and the glazed gable looks up the valley.
Studio · 4.6 × 3.0 m · Larch · 2022
A wheel, a kiln on its own circuit and a sink with a clay trap, at the end of a terrace garden you can only reach through the house. The walls are lined with painted steel in place of plaster, so the clay washes off.
Gym · 4.4 × 3.4 m · Composite · 2022
A stiffened floor for a rack and 200 kg of plates, and acoustic insulation so next door doesn’t hear the bar go down.
Studio · 5.0 × 3.6 m · Cedar · 2020
For a guitarist with neighbours on three sides. Acoustic insulation in the walls, floor and roof, and nobody has knocked yet.
Questions
Next step
Set the size, pick the cladding and tick what you need. The guide price and the drawing keep up with you.