A corporate fitness center : an example for the reuse of the Empire Stores, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Abstract

The proliferation of over 500 fitness programs for the employees of American corporations marks a turning point for the way American corporations regard employee and corporate health. Typically, sports facilities were the province of recreation or education facility planners. A category of sports activities has been isolated, however, for its cardiovascular characteristics and is the basic component of a fitness program The physiological characteristic which are of concern are those activities which contribute to the "training effect" of the heart or the ability of the heart to pump blood and oxygen to the body. The benefits of this conditioning are manifold. Longitudinal medical studies indicate that there are positive relationships across a large population for aerobic exercises or exercises which demand oxygen and decreased risk of heart attack in later life. While the correlation between exercise and good health seems merely the confirmation of good sense, it is a recent occurrence that this relationship has been quantified by corporations and utilized to increase "corporate health," through the construction of fitness facilities for employees. The intention behind this thesis is to explore the existing information about fitness centers and design a facility as the reuse of an historic building in Brooklyn, New York.