Awards Sponsor Q&A: Paragon Studio

Please tell us about Paragon Studio and what you do?

Based in the UK, we create luxury gym equipment made from premium sustainable materials, and finished to the highest of standards. Our goal as a business is to combine the ergonomics of exercise with an aesthetic consideration which sets our gyms apart from the average workout area.

Partnering with interior designers and leading architecture studios, we take a unique design approach to every gym design - ensuring each piece is customised to the client and looks natural within the space.

What sort of projects do you work on with interior designers?

For the most part our projects sit within the prime residential and elite hospitality sectors. This is due to the nature of our work in creating highly personal items which are either tailored around a single family or brand identity.

We recently completed our most ambitious project yet for some fantastic clients in a London basement gym, using custom grey stained wood on all equipment to complement their already established interior look. All equipment and accessories were chosen to seamlessly extend the aesthetics planned in the designers mood board.

With a specific list of accessories requested by the homeowners, we also created a custom storage wall that houses our Diabolo Dumbbells alongside accessories from other brands.

Tell us about some of your luxury gym products?

Our products are all made inside the UK from premium and sustainable natural materials; the range includes free weights, benches, wallbars and other gym accessories

Our award-winning Diabolo Dumbbells are the result of years of experience in the prime property industries; researching what makes the perfect dumbbell. Currently we are working on an end to end life cycle analysis of the dumbbell production, which will result in us being able to offset their emissions and declare them fully carbon neutral.

All our equipment can be customised to accommodate your gym design. Our standard metal finishes are Brushed Stainless Steel, however we can manufacture all products in Bronze also.

The metal can be finished in either a Brushed Satin or Mirrored Polished appearance depending on your preferences. The wooden components can be manufactured in Natural Oak, Iroko, Walnut and Blackwood and can be custom stained to match your interiors. We’ve recently made the switch from Teak to Iroko as a more sustainable and ethical choice.

Enhanced customisations can come in the form of laser engraved end-plates on weights, adding embroidered logos to bench pads, bespoke stain matching wood to interior joinery, PVD coating metal hardware or heat de-bossing logos into boxing gloves and bags.

What are you looking forward to about the BIID Award ceremony?

We always enjoy seeing companies and designers being awarded the credit and recognition they deserve for their amazing projects. After Covid -19 award ceremonies such as these were restricted, networking became an online activity. Seeing events taking place again is a lovely way to celebrate with everyone. It’s amazing to be able to attend this year in person and connect again with so many incredible designers.

Several of you we will have been communicating with online over the past few years, it will be amazing to finally meet you all face to face, and witness your exciting new design and product developments and what's to come of them in the future. 

Why is it important for interior designers to specify sustainable gym equipment for their projects?

When planning projects, most designers now think beyond just budgets and make decisions for the environment too. Being sustainable isn’t just about thinking ethically, it’s a long term and worthwhile investment.

Choosing sustainable items to reduce your carbon footprint should be at the centre of all design for the next generation, and often you will find that this purchasing mindset brings in exciting new design elements to a space too.

We all have heard of biophilic design, and it is widely accepted that this approach to interior space planning is beneficial for mental health as well as for the environment. This is part of the reason we use wood as our primary material for our equipment.

Making smaller changes more frequently has the biggest of impacts, and there is no limit to how this can be applied when planning any interior makeover or build.

Within gyms, material choice is just one factor. Choosing local equipment from local manufacturers further reduces your carbon footprint through reduction in shipping costs. We also love self-powered gym equipment, which is not only a good ethical decision but also reduces energy bills. Human energy is the most renewable power source after all!

Find out more about Paragon Studio.