The Fitness Cafe – London, UK

2009 – Built

The Fitness Café in St. Johns Wood combines a health food café with a personal training gym. Located on the ground and lower ground floor of an existing Victorian house, set within a conservation area, one of the project’s main challenges was to overcome the building’s spatial restrictions and lack of daylight in particular without major alterations to the exterior of the building. The design addressed this by maximizing the ceiling heights and devising a lighting system that is both discrete and responds to the respective functions of the space. The use of colour is part of the branding and helps to distinguish the two spaces in terms of their functions. The café and juice bar at ground floor level has a distinctly public character and directly faces the street, whilst the gym and personal training space on the lower ground floor, has a more private nature and relates to the quiet rear garden.