The client and the location
Krzysztof works remotely from his house in Gdańsk — a port city on the Baltic coast in northern Poland, roughly equivalent in feel to living near Brighton, Portsmouth or any UK coastal town. He trains in the morning before his first meeting and again in the evening after his last. For three years the routine was the same: get up, pull on a jacket, drive 12 minutes to the gym. Train. Drive back, shower, work. Efficient enough — but it wore thin.
When we asked what he actually wanted from a garden gym, the answer was short: “I want to walk out of my house, train, and come back. No car.”
Why coastal location demands a different specification
Gdańsk sits at the mouth of the Vistula river on the Baltic Sea — and that’s not just a geographical detail. Salt-laden air from the sea, persistently higher relative humidity compared to inland areas, and a meaningfully more corrosive atmospheric environment than you’d find in central Poland.
Anyone in the UK living within a few miles of the sea will recognise this immediately. The same principles that apply to garden furniture, conservatories and metal railings in coastal UK properties apply directly to a metal-framed outdoor gym structure.
A standard container unit is powder-coated — that’s decent protection. But for a location like Gdańsk (or anywhere along the Baltic TriCity coastal strip) we specified a double anti-corrosion treatment:
➜ Two-coat powder coating system — epoxy primer + polyurethane topcoat. Total coating thickness 120 µm (standard is 80 µm). Coating warranty extended to 10 years ➜ Marine-grade silicone sealing on all joints — wall panel seams, corners, roof edges — everywhere water and salt air could find a way in ➜ Hot-dip galvanised steel floor structure — instead of the standard painted finish. Galvanising is impervious to the micro-damage that, in a corrosive environment, becomes the starting point for rust
This isn’t upselling. A coastal climate genuinely requires a different specification for a long-life metal structure. We’ve seen what happens to units that weren’t built for it.
The module: Gym Box 9×3 Standard
The 9 × 3 m module (27 m²) is the sweet spot in our range: large enough for a full strength zone with cardio, small enough to sit in a garden without dominating the space.
Installed on a reinforced concrete slab (9.5 × 3.5 m), poured a week before the module was delivered and allowed to cure for a full 21 days. External colour: RAL 6005 dark green — at the request of Krzysztof’s wife, who wanted the structure to “blend into the garden rather than jump out of it.”
Equipment
Krzysztof trains to a structured plan: 4 strength days plus 2 cardio days per week. The equipment list was thought through from the very first conversation.
Strength zone: ➜ Freestanding 4-post power rack with high and low cable attachments ➜ 20 kg Olympic barbell + full plate set up to 300 kg ➜ Rubber-coated dumbbells 4–40 kg in 2 kg increments on a double tiered rack ➜ Two benches: flat + adjustable FID ➜ Independent cable pulley unit — wall-mounted, separate from the rack ➜ Pull-up bar mounted to rack
Cardio zone: ➜ Commercial electric treadmill — 3.5 hp motor, 20 km/h maximum speed ➜ Concept2 Model D rowing ergometer — set along the side wall (occupies 2 m² in use, 0.6 m² when stored)
Fit-out: ➜ 20 mm anthracite rubber flooring, full 27 m² coverage ➜ 4 m × 2 m mirror at the strength station ➜ Bluetooth audio with waterproof wall speaker ➜ App-controlled 5000K LED lighting
Services
A single 230V/32A cable from the house; everything distributed inside the module:
➜ 3.5 kW split air conditioning — rated to -20°C external temperature ➜ Electric underfloor heating as a supplementary heat source ➜ Mechanical ventilation with wall-mounted heat recovery unit ➜ 6 standard sockets + 2 USB sockets ➜ External LED lamp at the entrance with motion sensor
Timeline
9 weeks — slightly longer than the standard 6–7 weeks. The additional time was accounted for by the specialist anti-corrosion coating (the polyurethane topcoat requires 48 hours cure time above 15°C) and the 21-day concrete slab curing period.
Krzysztof knew this from the start and scheduled delivery for September — the weather cooperated perfectly.