The Gym, City Tower, Piccadilly, Manchester
Client: The Gym Group
Approximate area: 546m2
Acoustic Consultant: Sandy Brown Associates Completion date: August 2009
Background
This state-of-the-art gym facility is located on an upper-level floor overlooking Piccadilly Gardens in central Manchester. Potential acoustic problems were identified from an early planning stage due to its close proximity to the College of Law situated directly below. Sandy Brown Associates, working for the landlord Bruntwood, concluded that the gym would require a specialist acoustic floating floor to control the potential structural noise generated by gym activities such as treadmills, free weights, cardiovascular equipment and aerobic activities.
Solution
TVS, working alongside The Gym Group’s contractor, designed, supplied and installed a specialist timber acoustic floating floor.
The floor build-up comprised: 50mm cubed acoustic isolators laid on predetermined centres across the concrete sub-floor and separated by low-density glass wool; a covering layer of 18mm plywood; two layers of 12.5mm plasterboard; another layer of 18mm plywood; and a final layer of 9mm plywood. A vinyl floor finish, installed by separate contractors, completed the project.
The new acoustic floor build-up produced a floor not only capable of supporting the heavy point-loading of gym equipment, but also offered excellent acoustic isolation to prevent impact and vibration transmitting through the floor and into the building structure, where it might have caused structural noise in the Law Society library and other offices below.
