Human-Powered River Gymnasiums for New York

Isn’t it amazing the strange ideas people come up this.  Check this out: http://www.archinode.com/gym.html

Basically it’s a floating gym that is power by the people working out in it!


Our concept encapsulates a new typology for the contemporary urban gym.  It is  intended to challenge our innate proprioceptive and multi-planer locomotive abilities while synchronously altering the surroundings.  The River Gym will fulfill one of the major contemporary fitness goals of “functional training”. This training protocol will exploit the inherent disequilibrium of floatation devices.  Often the average urbanite exercising at the gym performs controlled repetitive single plane movements using industrial fitness equipment.  All of this energy is summarily dissipated and ultimately exhausted for the sake of a single individual’s wellbeing.  Other potentials exist to harness this vast human expenditure of caloric energy.  Why not have the simple transfer of this workout vigor supply New York with needed supplemental transport and amenities?  How can we extend and capitalize on this untapped group potential?  Into what form will this new kind of gym evolve? 
By continuing to provide vital health amenities, the River Gym can leave the realm of the glass box and become a useful multi-planar kinetic space.  Envision your gym becoming a machine of human propulsion that helps purify water, provide spectacular views, and transport less-motivated citizens. Why should gym members be forced to stare restlessly at a mirror, television, or static streetscape when their entire body is active?  Imagine this new fitness center as a series of many soft floating micro-islands revolving on a fifteen minute river loop with an exquisite ever-changing panoramic view.  Each River Gym vessel varies in size and critical mass population.  Therefore some vessels will need only a few members to boost the craft on its predetermined computer navigated loop.  Other larger floating units would require a superior sustaining population of club members and would only be used during peak hours

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