Interiors · Montreal
Reading time: 7 minIn Montreal’s Griffintown, Ivy Studio has designed ELMNT — a 1,500 sq ft all-black spinning studio where meditative calm and nightclub energy share a single, disciplined palette, proving that boutique fitness has become one of design’s most interesting frontiers.
There was a time when gym design meant rubber floors, motivational decals and as much fluorescent light as the ceiling could hold. That time, mercifully, has passed. In the ever-evolving world of boutique fitness, design now plays a pivotal role in defining a brand’s identity, setting the tone for a visitor’s experience from the moment they walk through the door — and few projects make the case as elegantly as ELMNT Studio in Montreal’s Griffintown.
Designed by Ivy Studio, the Montreal-based architecture and design practice known for its conceptual flair, ELMNT is a 1,500 sq ft (139 sq m) spinning and wellness space that blends minimalism with intensity. With a bold all-black scheme, mirrored walls and carefully considered materiality, it is more than a place for indoor cycling; it is a destination for anyone interested in how architecture can shape a holistic, immersive wellness experience.
A Design Language Rooted in Identity
At the heart of ELMNT is an unwavering commitment to brand alignment. Rather than defaulting to conventional wellness white or the earthy neutrals that dominate the sector, Ivy Studio channelled the brand’s monochrome identity into a cohesive, visually arresting interior: pure black, everywhere, without apology.
It is an unconventional choice for a fitness environment, and a brave one — black rooms are notoriously difficult to keep from feeling oppressive. What makes ELMNT succeed is that the darkness is not a single note but a register. “Although both areas are united by the brand’s all-black color palette, they each suggest opposing ambiances,” Ivy Studio explains, and that duality — calm and energetic, soft and bold — becomes the organising idea of the entire project, mirroring the mental and physical rhythms of a workout itself.
For me, this is what elevates ELMNT beyond styling. The colour is not a look; it is a structure. Everything else in the studio — light, texture, sequence — is calibrated against it.
“Although both areas are united by the brand’s all-black color palette, they each suggest opposing ambiances.”
IVY STUDIO
The Lobby: Calm Before the Climb
The plan divides the studio into two distinct zones, and the first is a lesson in restraint. In the lobby, visitors are met with polished concrete floors, exposed concrete columns and bespoke black-stained oak furniture — a palette of just three materials, each allowed to speak. A linear black bench greets guests and runs the length of the glazed street wall, wrapping around an existing structural column that Ivy Studio has integrated so gracefully it reads as a design decision rather than a constraint.
Built-in planters bring a hint of nature into the dark setting, their architectural snake plants rising against the concrete like green exclamation marks. It is a small gesture with a large effect: proof that black does not have to mean cold. The stained oak carries visible grain; the concrete carries its history; the greenery carries life. The result is tactile warmth — an atmosphere of clarity, focus and tranquillity that primes visitors for the effort ahead.
Behind a softly curved black wall sit the gender-neutral changing rooms, lined in sleek black mosaic tiles and equipped with four private showers. In a compact footprint, they deliver a genuine sense of personal luxury — and by holding rigidly to the studio’s visual language, they ensure the experience never breaks character, even at its most functional moments. A single white vase in a niche, holding a sprig of dried flowers, does the work that an entire gallery wall might do elsewhere.
Function as Sculpture
Practicality remains at the forefront of the design strategy, but at ELMNT even the utilitarian moments are composed. Spin shoes — an essential of indoor cycling — are displayed in a custom-built, all-black shelving wall, dozens of pairs arranged in a grid that functions as both storage and sculpture; against the darkness, the shoes themselves become the display. Belongings are secured in matching black lockers, their numbers picked out in subtle silver, while a cylindrical black water fountain provides hydration in the most minimal form the object could possibly take.
These touchpoints matter more than they might appear. Boutique fitness lives and dies on ritual — arrive, change, clip in, ride, recover — and ELMNT designs every step of that ritual with the same care. Nothing interrupts the visual field; nothing reminds you of an ordinary gym. The space demonstrates that high-performance fitness design can also be genuinely, rigorously stylish.
An Immersive, Electrifying Ride
Then comes the second zone, and the temperature changes entirely. The spinning room is a radical departure from the muted tranquillity of the lobby — the same black palette, deployed for drama rather than calm. Walls of floor-to-ceiling acrylic mirrors distort their reflections, bending the ranks of bikes and riders into a rippling, funhouse abstraction that seems to multiply the room’s energy.
Overhead, linear LED fittings stretch across the entire ceiling, and it is here that the design becomes performance. The colour-changing lights respond in real time as the music intensifies and instructors push the class towards its limits — cool white for the warm-up, saturated red at full effort, the whole room flooding with a high-octane ambience designed to electrify the senses. The space blurs the line between nightclub, performance venue and spin studio, making each class a fully immersive event.
What impresses most is the discipline underlying the spectacle. The lighting is theatrical, but the architecture remains austere: raw concrete columns stand untouched amid the mirrors, anchoring the room’s energy in something solid and real. It is the lobby’s calm and the studio’s fire, built from the same three materials and one colour.
There is a lesson here about darkness and light that extends well beyond fitness. In an all-black room, illumination becomes the only variable — which means it becomes the entire emotional vocabulary of the space. Ivy Studio understood that reducing the palette to nothing would make the lighting design everything, and the spin room’s shifting colours land with a force they could never achieve against white walls.
Boutique Fitness as Design Frontier
ELMNT arrives at a telling moment. With wellness culture continuing to reshape urban life, boutique fitness studios have become both lifestyle destinations and legitimate design case studies — commissions where young practices can experiment with atmosphere, branding and spatial storytelling at a scale large enough to matter and small enough to control.
The setting reinforces the point. The studio occupies the ground floor of a residential development in Griffintown, the fast-growing, design-forward district that has become one of Montreal’s creative engines, its streets thick with galleries, coffee shops and architecture practices. In that context, ELMNT functions as more than a place to sweat: it is an environment to reset, recharge and reconnect, and a shopfront for the neighbourhood’s design ambitions.
The influence of design here extends well beyond aesthetics. Spatial planning, acoustics, lighting and materials all shape how clients perceive their workout, how long they linger afterwards, and whether they return. ELMNT’s architectural storytelling encourages exactly that repeat engagement — while creating a brand presence memorable enough to travel, on-site and across social media alike.
Ivy Studio: Montreal’s Narrative Practice
The project also confirms Ivy Studio — led by Gabrielle Rousseau and Philip Staszewski — as one of the most compelling voices in Canadian commercial design. Theirs is a portfolio built on narrative: a dry cleaner modelled on a Parisian apartment, a tropical-inflected restaurant, stark and sculptural retail boutiques. The settings vary wildly; the through-line is a strong concept executed with meticulous attention to detail.
With ELMNT, the studio adds a new benchmark to that body of work — a demonstration of its capacity to fuse utility with creativity in a way that feels fresh, purposeful and memorable. Black-on-black interiors are easy to attempt and difficult to sustain; Ivy Studio sustains this one across every surface, fixture and threshold without a single lazy moment.
Worth the Detour
Whether you are a design enthusiast touring the best of Montreal’s interiors or a fitness devotee in search of a next-level ride, ELMNT Studio deserves a place on the itinerary. Its Griffintown address puts it within walking distance of some of the city’s best coffee, galleries and studios — ideal for a design-focused day out that happens to include forty-five minutes of hard cycling.
More than a place to take a class, ELMNT is an architectural expression of balance and intensity: the stillness of the lobby and the storm of the spin room, held together by one uncompromising palette. It challenges the norms of what a fitness space can be — refined, responsive and unmistakably stylish — and it suggests that the most interesting rooms in our cities are no longer only the ones we dine and sleep in, but the ones in which we move.
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