The Forge, a luxury private gym in Monaco is stepping up its game with a new control and audio
system to bring a slice of home automation and luxury that its high-end customers are accustomed to in a commercial environment. Reece Webb explores.
Some people can find gyms uncomfortable and alien, but The Forge, a self-described personal training lab, is turning the experience on its head by implementing a sophisticated control and audio system to provide a unique,tailor-made experience.
Enter Intellicasa, traditionally a residential smart home integrator based in the UK, to provide a homely experience to one of Monaco’s luxury gyms for private clientele, providing a residential style installation in a cutting-edge commercial gym.
Elie Kfoury, director, Intellicasa, explained: “We thought of it in the sense of a residential installation, it’s a private commercial gym and people are spending a lot of money to go there and get trained privately.“People aren’t being trained in groups, so you need to offer them the same comfort that they can find in their own cars and apartments in Monaco, that was the idea behind us designing it based on the area and location of the gym.”
Intellicasa got involved with the project via a tender process and agreed to travel to Monaco to carry out the installation. Intellicasa designed a bespoke control and audio system to offer guests a personalised experience,relying on Crestron audio and control systems to deliver an experience tailored to the gym’s customers. Kfoury: “We installed Crestron throughout; lighting,AV, PRO3 processors and heating controls.
Hikvision cameras and panels communicate seamlessly with the system. “We also installed 14 Crestron eight-in pendant loudspeakers to distribute the sound around the dance room, boxing ring, boxing bags area, free weights area and cardio area, with Aspire-IC8-W-T8-in in-ceiling loudspeakers in the reception and changing room areas."
Swamp amplifiers were also used, as well as Crestron Pro3 processors.Intellicasa intended the system to be a distinctive, one-of-a-kind installation as Kfoury explained:“It’s a very unique solution.We not only listen to what the client wants, we see what the environment of the installation is like and we [carry out] our installation to be compatible to the surrounding area that it’s being installed in. We don’t do the same solution anywhere else,we do different solutions because the market is different.”
The system relies exclusively on Crestron control and audio with Hikvision cameras, as Kfoury clarified: “Crestron is quite a bulletproof, well established name in the AV sector. Because [the project is] in Monaco and because it’s a gym,it’s used heavily for about 13 hours a day. You need a system that can manage that as well as be resilient for the duration of the gym’s operation without any major hiccups.
Robustness and reliability form the centrepiece of the system, creating a sophisticated environment for gym users that Kfoury suggests is far from atypical gym installation: “Most technology in gyms is not this sophisticated, your bog-standard gym has the same repeating music playing every day.They mainly go with products just on brand alone, they don’t often go for the performance or the reliability.
Most technology in gyms is not this sophisticated,your bog-standard gym has the same repeating music playing every day. - Elie Kfoury, Intellicasa
"They mainly go with products just on brand alone, they don’t often go for the performance or the reliability.“In terms of lighting design,our system dims the lights to a certain extent. If the gym wants to have classical ballet in one of the rooms, then they don’t need the lights to be too bright.
"They can touch one button and it will change the music, change the lighting and can also raise or lower the temperature based on the season of the year, it does all these things autonomously.”
AI also plays a key role in the installation, using smart systems to provide a ‘homely’environment. Kfoury: “We use a little bit of AI here to entertain the clients and make them feel as if they are in their own home.
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