80x200 Steel Gymnasium Building

No price appears on this page. The quantities that scale an estimate at 80x200 are 16,000 square feet of slab, 197.5 cubic yards of nominal concrete, 7,840 square feet of wall cladding and 16,492 square feet of roof cladding. A building that cannot be reversed out of is a building that gets used in one direction only.

Proportion drives cost here as much as size does: 560 ft of wall around 16,000 sq ft is 0.035 ft of wall per enclosed square foot, and a squarer plan of the same area would carry less. Framed openings, interior finish and the height chosen for the 80 ft span move the figure further than the footprint alone does.

• clear height above the playing surface
• the clear span across the court and its run-off
• the support wing with changing rooms
• impact-resistant lighting and interior surfaces

This page is ordered around access, because on a 80-foot endwall the opening arrangement settles how a steel gymnasium at 80x200 is actually used.

2 activity fields fit across the 80-foot width with only 0 feet left over, which is a tight fit: the width is fully committed and nothing can be widened later without moving a wall.

Efficiency is the useful number here: 2,667 square feet of enclosed floor per activity field, against a 2400-square-foot module. That is a tight, efficient allocation with little slack. Long spans buy flexibility that is only worth paying for if the operation actually changes shape.

A 80 by 200 footprint is a long corridor of a plan: 16,000 sq ft enclosed by 560 ft of wall, at a 2.5:1 length-to-width proportion. Along its 200 ft dimension it takes 3 runs of activity fields at 60 ft, leaving 20 ft over — the 20 ft is where the argument about this size actually happens. Taken purely as arithmetic, 80 by 200 gives 1 activity fields across the 80 ft dimension once 20 ft is reserved for movement, and 3 deep along the 200 ft dimension. The 20 ft left across and 20 ft left deep are the only genuinely discretionary space on this footprint. Perimeter clearance is unusable floor by design, and treating it as spare space defeats it.

This footprint is planned as a large multi-activity fieldhouse floor. The longest internal travel on a 80 by 200 plan is about 215 ft corner to corner, and the shortest useful one is the 80 ft cross-run. Anything placed to shorten the 80 ft run lengthens the 200 ft one, which is the trade this footprint keeps presenting. Court and run-off dimensions for a given activity are set by the governing body concerned and confirmed for the specific building.

Openings are the pinch point here. With 0 feet of spare width the gable cannot host 2 separate doors, so access is either shared or moved to the 200-foot sidewall. Cleaning, maintenance and inspection all need reach, and reach is planned in the gaps rather than in the modules.

At least one opening large enough for vehicle or plant access changes what the building can host, because event equipment does not arrive through a personnel door.

The columns win at this footprint: 25-foot nominal bays against a 40-foot module means every layout decision starts from where the frames fall. A wider bay is a structural decision and a longer bay is a layout decision; the two are often confused.

Depth here creates a hierarchy: 3 rows means front positions get used and rear positions get filled. Deciding which is which up front is what keeps 80x200 workable. Service routes are cheap to plan now and expensive to retrofit through a finished shell.

A fieldhouse rarely extends; it is planned at its final size and grows by adding attached ancillary buildings. Leaving one elevation clear for that is the practical provision.

Configured as a large multi-activity fieldhouse floor, 80x200 is judged on whether the 6 activity fields it holds match the operation, and on whether the 0 feet of spare width leaves the route this mode depends on.

• Does the work need racking or work zones on both sides with a full vehicle lane down the middle, or does it need a second lane that this 80-foot span cannot give?
• Is the 200-foot length being bought for depth, or for the repeated bays — a long uninterrupted bay sequence that suits repetitive layouts and continuous processes?
• What clear height does the activity need, measured to the lowest obstruction?
• Are the run-off margins protected from storage and seating?

The activity pattern this floor could equally be planned around is an activity floor with a support wing of changing, storage and staff rooms: the store is too shallow to hold what the floor generates, so equipment stays out and the floor edge becomes storage. The centre stays uncommitted on purpose. Allocation happens at the perimeter — loop, storage, seating, support — and every intrusion into the middle reduces the one capability the building exists for.

There is no end zone at this footprint. 0 feet is circulation slack, not floor area with a purpose, and there is no perimeter loop, so warm-up happens across the middle of whatever else is running. Depth is bought cheaply and width expensively, which is why this proportion tends to be argued about before anything else.

Only 0 feet of width is spare, so there is no wall strip: anything set along a sidewall comes out of a activity field's clearance. Height is the dimension people regret; it cannot be added later without rebuilding the frame line.

The longest internal travel on a 80 by 200 plan is about 215 ft corner to corner, and the shortest useful one is the 80 ft cross-run. Anything placed to shorten the 80 ft run lengthens the 200 ft one, which is the trade this footprint keeps presenting. Court and run-off dimensions for a given activity are set by the governing body concerned and confirmed for the specific building. That movement pattern, not the 16,000-square-foot total, is what decides whether the leftover 0 feet is useful here.

The stored configuration carries a 14-foot eave and computes to 24 feet at the ridge on a 3:12 pitch — a 10-foot rise across 80 feet. Height is therefore not uniform, and the sidewall is the constraint. Every foot of width added multiplies through the roof and the frame; every foot of length mostly adds skin.

A large floor raises the height question for activities that a smaller floor never hosts, and the height applies over the whole area. Requirements for specific activities are set by the governing bodies concerned.

Ventilation across 16,000 square feet at this height: an intensively occupied volume with high activity levels, where air handling is planned for the occupied peak.

• 80x80 holds the same 6 activity fields but changes the leftover depth by +6 feet, which is where the difference is actually felt.
• 60x120 moves the count from 6 to 2 activity fields (1 across by 2 deep), which is the reason to choose between them.
• 50x150 moves the count from 6 to 4 activity fields (1 across by 4 deep), which is the reason to choose between them.

Because this footprint is planned as a large multi-activity fieldhouse floor, the useful next reads are different from the ones a differently shaped steel gymnasium suggests: fieldhouse planning, perimeter loop layout, large clear volume planning.