New Athletic Facilities What They Should Be Like

I was thinking, if a new YMCA type building were to be built, what should it be like? My opinions as of now:

I will update this topic here in this blog-post. 

Last update: 12:06 PM 1/1/2015

1. The building should be comprised of basketball-court type gym space, lockers, bathrooms, showers and nothing else. I never have a problem, finding a place to swim, or a place to lift weights or a place to run or walk. But I do have problems, finding open gym space when I want to practice a sport individually or play it with others. There are advantages to not trying to accomplish too much with one project.

2. The walls of the gym, doors leading into it, & windows in the walls should be as much as possible, smooth and flat and without objects in front of them. This allows for practice involving a ball being rebounded off the wall.

2.1  The closet space adjoining the gym should be spacious & well-organized.

2.2 The objects in the gym such as chairs bleachers & tables should be mounted on rollers so as to be easily moved.

2.3 There should be small lightweight tables on rollers athletes can use for the purpose of keeping notes in notebooks etc.

2.4  As much as possible objects such as bleachers should be in proximity to closets they can be rolled into to get them out of the way.

2.5 The basketball backboard and ring should be on rollers so that they can be rolled out of the way. Too often, when it is supposed to be open gym, you get full court basketball. People always assume that the primary & most appropriate purpose of court space is full-court basketball. 

3. Optimally, the walls would be stiff and durable enough to bounce balls off of, yet like a teacher's chalkboard, it would be easy to draw targets on it, and to erase the drawn targets. 

4. The ceiling should be constructed so that balls do not get stuck in the rafters, &  if they do, it is easy to retrieve them.

5. There should be two to four basketball courts adjoining each other. When just one court is surrounded by walls and ceiling, the cost per square meter of court-space is higher. Multi-court design would allow for a combination of courts to be turned into one large playing area. 

5.1 It should be possible to roll out barriers that separate the courts from each other, barriers which cut down on heating and cooling costs.

6. It should be possible to keep the courts at a cool temperature at all times of the year. Many times, I've suffered through practices and games in gyms featuring incredibly high humidity and temperature. 

7. There should be an emphasis on providing clean air to those using the courts. When people exercise they breathe more and their breathing is deeper; hence air pollution effects them more compared to when they are resting. Some locations (seems tops of hills) feature cleaner air compared to others. 

8. Materials used in the gym should be chosen carefully. Organic and natural materials should be sought after. Materials such as plastics are constantly shedding small particles into the air.

9. The building should be constructed so as to take advantage of power sources such as solar, hydro, wind (effected by location of building).

10. At least a significant fraction of the lockers should be large & spacious.

11. The showers should always be able to produce a hard hot spray of purified water. My showerhead takes things like chlorine out of the water I shower in.

12. The gym should be well equipped with equipment allowing for it to be used for many different sports. This equipment should be on rollers so as to be easily moved and there should be easily accessible and plentiful closet space to move the equipment into when not used.

13. By way of combination of video-equipment, internet, & computers, people should be able to obtain videos of their practice sessions & contests. Clever application of current technology makes it possible to accomplish such cost-effectively. 

14. There should never be a shortage of parking.

15. The gymnasium should be located in a place such that large numbers of people can access it without travelling for more than 20 minutes.

15.1 Deals can be worked out whereby the gymnasium replaces buildings that are currently located in a spot that would be ideal for the gymnasium

Futurism: There are ideas that could be implemented when technology makes them cost-effective. 

F1: the walls and the floor would be like computer monitors that are tough enough that you can bounce balls off them and run and jump on them. Hence various targets could be programmed to appear on the walls, and various markings on the floor.