state of the locker is bringing top tier locker design to your door
Locker design in 2024 means keeping up with the joneses. What was once a world of wooden panels and metal doors has become a beast all its own. A locker is a place to store necessities… sure, but these key pieces offer a behind the scenes look at who your team is and how you want them to be portrayed. Sounds a little intimidating when you think about it like that.
Coaches want a unique experience and look for their team, while providing their players with modern features. Architects want to keep their design ideals alive while staying relevant within the sphere of athletic creation. Equipment and facilities professionals need furniture that is easy to utilize and clean while lasting a lifetime.
That’s a lot of people to please, so we’ve done the work for you. At SHIELD we’ve analyzed every job we’ve ever won - or lost - to provide the experts guide to locker design, because nobody wants to start from scratch. State of The Locker is here and we’re bringing it to your door.
The current offerings include information on collegiate and professional football and basketball with measurements, pricing and locker room square footage so you can have a solid starting point when creating your team’s custom lockers. These two sports… they’re just the beginning; if you’re curious about soccer, volleyball, softball or any olympic sport keep an eye out, State of The Locker is just getting started and we cannot wait to share everything we have learned.
The Locker Room Experience
Team dynamics are born in the locker room. Before and after every game or practice players come together to prep and socialize, consistently building camaraderie. In a space fostering player’s relationships and skills, comfortability and beauty must coexist to create a room that feels like home while offering your players the best experience.
Though every sport deserves the pro treatment, they all have different priorities. A basketball locker will have features football lockers don’t need and volleyball lockers won't be designed like softball.
“Every locker room is different,” said Justin Maland, Associate Athletics Director/Capital Projects & Technology at the University of Arkansas. “There’s not a manual out there. We’re gonna start with function first and then build out from there and let the process evolve.”
From men’s sports and women’s sports to D1 and D2, every team needs equipment that will work specifically for them. Today more than ever lockers are being created with tons of features, so much so that it can be difficult to even know the exact questions to ask. State of The Locker lets you know the questions and answers with no pain in the process.
Building the Perfect Locker
So you want to know what the perfect locker will be for your team, but where do you start? Collegiate and professional teams are constantly upping the ante, building the pile of information to sift through. But you’re watching over an entire renovation. You don’t have the time to put all of your focus on what kind of phone charger your team's locker will include or how they’re going to store their shoes.
That’s why we created State of The Locker. A full-blown guide to locker design in the modern age that lets you in on exclusive information about what teams at the top of their game are using in their locker rooms. Don’t know all of the newest features to keep lockers relevant? We do. You don’t need to know what’s hot in modern locker design when experts are involved.
“Technology everyday seems to be changing as far as integrating into the lockers,” said Maland. “We’re starting to do lighting seams, USB ports are becoming a standard… a lot of little things here and there. Doesn’t seem like it’s gonna stop.”
What should a locker look like in 2024? We’ve got all the answers. How tall should your men’s collegiate basketball locker be? About 97”. What about women? 98”. How much is a collegiate football locker going to run you? Around $5,000. How deep should your bench be for a pro basketball locker? It’s 25”. And there's more where that came from...
Now you’ve got the information, but we didn’t stop there. With State of The Locker we created Revit models that seamlessly drop into any design. For architects building out projects, saving time with the tedious stuff means putting more time into showing off your full vision.
Starting with nothing sucks, what can be even worse is having information but not knowing what to do with it. How do you find out what the top teams are really doing in locker design when there is simply so much to understand? That’s why we’re bringing you cold, hard facts about what the best of the best are bringing to their locker rooms.
Teams use playbooks to score big - Why should lockers be any different? Think of it like a cheat-code to finding your perfect piece.
Locker room design is one of the major cornerstones in training, recruiting, performance, and recovery. It’s one of the major places where organizations can showcase their efforts to identify player and coaching needs. Make sure that whatever your next locker rooms ends up becoming, It starts by listening to current players and staff and bringing their ideas to the table.