Steel Building Strategies: How to Make Multipurpose Facilities User Friendly
When designing a steel building for a multipurpose facility, it’s important to make it readily accessible to a variety of user groups.
Multipurpose. Multifunctional. Multiuse. No matter what you call them, these facilities provide tremendous value to a community. By designing and erecting a steel building that can accommodate a variety of activities and user groups, municipalities save money and provide a central gathering place for things like:
- Sports and athletics
- Performing arts
- Visual arts
- Professional groups
- Non-profit community groups
If you were to build a venue for every one of these community groups, it would quickly become cost prohibitive, and you’d possibly run out of public space. By creating integrated facilities that embrace the concept of synergy, you not only ease the burden on taxpayers, you can position these facilities in easily accessible locations to provide maximum value to residents.
A Collaborative Approach
By its very definition, a multiuse facility means different user groups will be forced to share the steel building. While there might be scheduling hiccups and other challenges from time to time, the majority of these groups adopt an attitude of teamwork and collaboration to make the situation work for everyone involved.
The more people that buy into this philosophy, the better it is for the building. The more users that feel a sense of ownership of the building and what goes on under its roof, the more people there’ll be to look after it.
Plus, some of these groups might not associate with one another otherwise. In a sense, they can thank the multipurpose facility for bringing them together and strengthening the community ties.
For more information on this, read our post: How Pre Engineered Buildings Create Stronger Communities.
Sharing More than a Facility
Developing a community building comes at great expense, but the return in social capital more than makes up for it in most cases. By sharing a facility, you spread out (or reduce) the expenses, while sharing the benefits:
- Development costs
- Operating and maintenance costs
- Revenue benefits
- Increased programming capability
- Greater exposure to non-traditional consumer bases
- Successful partnerships between user groups
- Pooled resources
The end result is groups have access to a greater collection of amenities and resources than they would on their own.
Forming Synergetic Partnerships
Some community groups just work better together than others. It stands to reason that a steel building designed to house multiple sporting activities would integrate well with medical modalities such as:
- Physiotherapy
- Massage
- Kinesiology
Another great example of an effective multiuse partnership is a recreation facility teaming up with the local school district to offer athletic training programs. It’s a win-win because the building remains accessible to the public, but it also provides much-needed space for school-aged athletes.
Types of facility this could work for include:
- Ice arenas
- Indoor track and field venues
- Indoor soccer fields
- Indoor tennis courts
- Riding rings
As long as there are common goals shared by the groups involved, the potential for partnerships is immense.
Multiuse facilities represent an opportunity to share development and operational costs among user groups. Metal Structure Concepts has the experience to design and erect any type of pre engineered steel building to meet your needs. Call us to discuss your project requirements.