設計師順應文化 令裸體社交更安心
Gym designers have rid locker rooms of the gnarly shower curtains, trading them in for sexy glass escape pods. They have made bathroom stalls ever more private. Comfy couch corners, Wi-Fi and lockers with built-in locks have gone from swank options to standard issue.
健身房設計師已經摒棄用粗糙浴簾隔開的更衣室，代之以性感的玻璃隔間。他們把浴室隔間也做得更私密。以前，舒適的沙發、WiFi和帶有內置鎖的儲物櫃是奢侈的可選項，現在這些都是標配。
“Everyone wants to get upgraded now,” said Rudy Fabiano, an architect who estimates he has designed about 500 gyms in the last 25 years.
建築師魯迪·法比亞諾(Rudy Fabiano)稱自己在過去25年裏大約設計了500家健身房。他說：“現在所有人都想升級。”
But gyms are still unable to provide the one thing younger men in particular seem to really want: a way for them to shower and change without actually being nude.
但是，健身房依然不能提供年輕人真正想要的一樣東西：不必裸體示人就能沐浴更衣。
Each day, thousands upon thousands of men in locker rooms nationwide struggle to put on their underwear while still covered chastely in shower towels, like horrible breathless arthropods molting into something tender-skinned. They writhe, still moist, into fresh clothes.
每天，美國各地成千上萬的男人在更衣室裏難爲情地裹着浴巾，費力穿上內褲，就像可怕的氣喘吁吁的節肢動物在蛻變成軟體動物。身上還沒幹透就得扭動着穿上乾淨衣服。
“In the last 20 years, maybe 25 years, there’s a huge cultural shift in people that ultimately affects gyms,” said Bryan Dunkelberger, a founding principal of S3 Design, which has worked for clients like Equinox and the Sports Club/ LA.
S3設計公司(S3 Design)曾服務過Equinox和Sports Club/ LA等客戶。該公司的主要創始人布賴恩·鄧克爾伯格(Bryan Dunkelberger)說：“在過去20年或25年裏，文化的重大變遷最終影響了健身房。”
“Old-timers, guys that are 60-plus, have no problem with a gang shower and whatever,” Mr. Dunkelberger said. “The Gen X-ers are a little bit more sensitive to what they’re spending and what they’re expecting. And the millennials, these are the special children. They expect all the amenities. They grew up in families that had Y.M.C.A. or country club memberships. They expect certain things. Privacy, they expect.”
鄧克爾伯格說：“60多歲的老年人對大家一起淋浴什麼的沒有意見。X世代對自己的花費和期待更敏感一些。而千禧一代是一羣特殊的孩子。他們期望擁有各種設施。他們的父母是基督教青年會或鄉村俱樂部會員。他們期待某些東西，比如私密。”
Your gym wants you to have gym buds, with whom you buy expensive carb-infested juices on site and with whom you swap tips about trainers and teachers (but with whom you definitely don’t swap spit). And now your gym wants you to feel a little more at ease in that most sensitive space: the men’s locker room.
健身房希望你擁有健身夥伴，你們可以一起在健身房購買昂貴的高碳水化合物的果汁，交換關於教練和老師的看法（但是你肯定不會和他交換唾液）。現在，健身房想讓你在最敏感的空間感覺更自在：男更衣室。
Showering after gym class in high school became virtually extinct in the ’90s. And if Manhattan’s high-end gyms weren’t riddled with ab-laden models or Europeans (or both), there would be few heterosexuals under 40 who have spent any naked time with other men.
高中上完體育課後沐浴的做法在20世紀90年代已經基本消失。若不是曼哈頓的高級健身房裏擠滿腹肌明顯的模特或歐洲人（或歐洲模特），又有幾個40歲以下的異性戀男士和其他男人有過裸體相見。
“It’s funny, they’re more socially open with everything — Facebook, social media — yet more private in their personal space,” said Kevin Kavanaugh, the president of David Barton Gym.
戴維·巴頓健身房(David Barton Gym)總裁凱文·卡瓦諾(Kevin Kavanaugh)說：“很有意思，他們在所有事情上都更開放，比如在Facebook等社交媒體上，但是卻要求更私密的個人空間。”
Not long after the invention of the idea of personal space in 1959 came a classic ’70s study gamely titled “Personal Space Invasions in the Lavatory.” In it, researchers spied upon urinals to see how long it took for men to begin emptying their bladders.
1959年，個人空間這個概念出現。在那不久之後的70年代，出現了一個經典研究，名字很有趣：《廁所裏的個人空間侵犯》(Personal Space Invasions in the Lavatory)。研究者們在男用小便器上安裝了一個探測器，追蹤男人們在多長時間之後開始清空膀胱。
It takes, we learned, almost twice as long when there is a man at a urinal next to you, and about half as long as when someone is one urinal away, compared to going it alone.
研究結果是，與獨自撒尿相比，旁邊小便器有人的話，開始撒尿的時間要延後一倍，隔一個小便器有人的話，時間會縮短一半。
Closeness breeds anxiety; penis-related closeness can be overwhelming.
社交距離的縮小讓人緊張；與生殖器有關的社交距離縮小可能讓人難以承受。
“Someone standing next to you at the subway station fully clothed is less close than someone standing next to you naked at a gym,” Mr. Dunkelberger said.
鄧克爾伯格說：“健身房裏裸體站在你旁邊的人比地鐵站裏穿着衣服站在你旁邊的人更讓你覺得捱得近。”
“Privacy and space is kind of where it’s at,” Mr. Fabiano said.
法比亞諾說：“私密和空間取決於地點。”
Gyms, like black holes, resonate at a frequency. There is the chartreuse and violet and space-black thrum of David Barton Gym, and the clean white with candy red accents of New York Sports Club — a red wholly different from the sensual deep red ping of Barry’s Bootcamp. The blistering white and yellow of a SoulCycle burns the hottest.
健身房和黑洞一樣，是在某個頻率上震動。戴維·巴頓健身房是橄欖綠、紫羅蘭色和太空黑的合奏；紐約運動俱樂部(New York Sports Club)是乾淨的白色搭配糖果紅色，那種紅色與巴里訓練營(Barry’s Bootcamp)魅惑的深紅色全然不同。SoulCycle健身房醒目的白色和黃色最爲性感。
Our budget-conscious friend Blink Fitness has a funny soft blue that I can’t even hear. Crunch has the palette of those awesome Indian comic books. The wheat and marble of Equinox is like “Mussolini does the Hamptons.”
注重成本的Blink Fitness健身房用的是一種我從沒聽說過的有趣的淡藍色。Crunch健身房的色調像是印第安漫畫書的精彩搭配。Equinox健身房的小麥色和大理石色就像“墨索里尼來到了紐約漢普頓海濱”。
Mr. Dunkelberger believes that women pick a gym based on whether it is clean and safe. Only then do they imagine themselves in the environment. Men choose a gym more abstractly, less sensibly, more ineptly.
鄧克爾伯格認爲，女人挑選健身房的標準是乾淨安全。只有滿足這兩個條件，女人們才能想象自己在其中的情景。男人挑選健身房的標準則更抽象，不明智，更糊塗。
Now, more than ever before, they choose tastefulness. In almost every high-end locker room there is a wet door, leading to a dank troll cave. This is the steam room. But at the Equinox abutting the High Line, the men’s steam room instead intrudes: It is a glass box that presents itself as a wall dividing the sink area and shower area.
現在，他們比以往任何時候都更注重品味。幾乎所有的高檔更衣室都設有一塊溼地板，通向潮溼的洞穴——蒸汽室。但是在高線(High Line)附近的Equinox健身房，男用蒸汽室是突出來的：它是一個玻璃房，把盥洗區和淋浴區分隔開。
From three sides, fleshy moving colors are visible inside. It is reminiscent of the absurd smoking chamber of Rome’s Fiumicino airport. It is a thirst trap as drawn by Michel Foucault and executed by Olafur Eliasson. It’s great.
你能從三面看到移動的人影。它讓人想起了羅馬菲烏米奇諾機場(Fiumicino)荒唐的吸菸室。它就像米歇爾·福柯(Michel Foucault)設想、奧拉維爾·埃利亞鬆(Olafur Eliasson)製作的飢渴陷阱。棒極了。
The Equinox on East 61st Street, two David Barton locations and the Setai Club on Wall Street have lately partnered with Glam & Go, a blowout bar that starts at $25 for 15-minute dry-hair blowouts.
東61街上的Equinox健身房、戴維·巴頓的兩家分店以及華爾街的Setai Club健身房最近和Glam & Go吹髮店合作——花費25美元可以獲得15分鐘吹乾頭髮的服務（這是起步價）。
At the David Barton Gym on Astor Place, Glam & Go was installed inside the women’s locker room. “Our men are saying: ‘Hey, what about me? I can’t go in the ladies room to get it,’” Mr. Kavanaugh said. “So we’re talking about how to put it in gender-neutral areas.”
在阿斯特廣場(Astor Place)的戴維·巴頓健身房，Glam & Go是設在女士更衣室裏的。卡瓦諾說：“男顧客們在問：‘嘿，我怎麼辦？我又不能去女更衣室吹頭髮’。所以我們在考慮把它搬到公用區域。”
For the conceivable future, the all-gender blowout bar looks to be the only moderately intimate gym location where men and women are likely to mix. For a city now seemingly mostly composed of subsidized young people from posh liberal arts schools who all dormed and often showered together, it’s queer, and a little sad, to see that desires for privacy and gender segregation are still entrenched in design.
在可以想見的未來，全性別吹髮室可能是健身房裏唯一一個男女共處的中度親密的地方。紐約市現在似乎主要由上流文科院校裏受資助的年輕人組成，他們都住宿舍，經常一起沐浴，所以，看到對私密和性別隔離的渴望仍深深存在於設計之中，讓人覺得奇怪而悲哀。
“We had an attempt at a coed sauna, thinking it would work well,” Mr. Kavanaugh said. “But it didn’t. I was surprised at the amount of puritanical behavior around mixing the sexes. I guess it goes to wanting more privacy.”
卡瓦諾說：“我們曾設立過一個男女共用的桑拿房，以爲它會很受歡迎，但其實不然。我很奇怪，男女共處時，很多人會感到拘謹。我猜是因爲人們希望擁有更多私密空間。”
“If there was a man in there, women wouldn’t go in,” he said. “If there was a woman in there, men wouldn’t go in. It became very strange. I’m surprised at how less enlightened we are about crossing and mixing genders.”
他說：“如果裏面有個男人，女人們不會進去。如果裏面有個女人，男人們不會進去。這很奇怪。我不明白爲什麼我們在男女共用方面這麼不開化。”
Gym designers have waged a long battle to make the locker room not sad, not alienating and not a place that smells like butts. They treat urban loneliness and personal shame as a product problem — with a product solution. And their success means that the gym is now both everyone’s extra bathroom and extra living room.
長期以來，健身房設計師們在努力讓更衣室不再悲哀，不再疏遠，不再是一個聞起來臭烘烘的地方。他們認爲城市的孤獨感和個人羞恥感是產品問題，能夠通過改進產品得到解決。他們的成功意味着，如今健身房是大家的另一個衛生間和另一個起居室。
The other day I visited the new Equinox Brookfield Place, where the men’s executive locker room is reached by iris scan. The perfection of all possible lighting has been achieved at the very manly locker sinks, and I spent quite some time staring lovingly at myself there. I’ve never looked better.
有一天，我去參觀布魯克菲爾德廣場(Brookfield Place)新開的Equinox健身房，那裏的高級男更衣室要通過虹膜掃描才能進入。盥洗區很有男人味，燈光效果極佳，我長時間含情脈脈地注視着鏡子中的自己，覺得自己從沒這麼美過。
Gym capitalism works. I don’t think I’m lonely anymore.
健身房資本主義起作用了。我不再覺得自己是孤獨的。
