A Golf Simulator, Gym and Entertaining Space by Swift Unlimited
Published: 4 July 2026
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Most garden rooms are built around one use. This one in Reading was built around four: a golf simulator to play a round without leaving home, a gym, a bar and entertaining area, and cloakrooms that guests can reach without walking back into the house. Swift Unlimited designed and built it as one cohesive building, and it is a good example of how they work, from a blank sheet, around the client and the site rather than from a fixed footprint or a catalogue of options.
The brief came from a client who wanted a large garden room to complement his wife's existing Pilates studio. What he described was not a standard building, and that suited Swift Unlimited. The name Unlimited points to exactly this: no set design, no standard finish, just a considered response to what each client actually wants and how they intend to use the space.
We have featured a golf simulator garden room by Swift Unlimited before, built for a different client on a different site. This project shares that headline feature and the idea of a club-style space with a bar, but the two buildings are not versions of the same template. Each was designed around its own garden, its own brief, and its own wishlist.
A Brief Built Around How It Would Be Used
The request was for a genuinely multi-purpose building: a golf simulator room, a gym, a bar and entertaining area, and toilet provision that could serve the wider garden as well as the room itself. Three cloakrooms in total, one reached from inside the building and two accessed externally.
Every decision followed from how the space would be lived in. The golf simulator gives the room a clear centrepiece for personal practice and for entertaining. The gym and the wet bar turn it into a complete leisure space rather than a single-purpose one. And the two external toilets, which might seem an unusual inclusion, form part of the wider garden project, so guests can use the facilities without going into the garden room or the main house. It is a small piece of planning that says a great deal about how carefully the whole scheme was thought through.
Designed to Complement, Not to Match
Swift Unlimited designed the building to complement the Pilates studio already in the garden without copying it. It takes a dual-pitched roof, so it sits comfortably alongside the studio, but the two buildings are distinct rather than a matching pair.
Externally it is finished in black, with board-on-board cladding that adds real texture and depth to the walls rather than presenting a flat face. The roof is tiled. The result is a confident, dark exterior that holds its own in the garden and woodland setting and settles the new building into the plot alongside what was already there.
That dual pitch does more than settle the building into its setting. Inside, it creates the height the room needs. The vaulted ceiling gives the golf simulator the clearance it requires for a full swing and true ball flight, and that same generous height carries across to the gym, where a weight rack and rig benefit from the extra space overhead. The height was designed to serve both uses, not just the golf.
Inside the 14.5-Metre Wide Layout
The building measures 14.5 metres wide by 5 metres deep, and the internal plan divides it into distinct zones that work independently but flow as one. The three cloakrooms are arranged so that one is reached from inside and two from outside. The gym sits between the toilets, and the main room, at 8.4 metres wide, holds the golf simulator and the entertaining area with its wet bar.
The simulator room is the showpiece. Foresight technology projects the course onto a full-width screen, with a hitting mat set into the turf and a second display mounted to one side. Overhead, the vaulted ceiling and upper walls are lined in soft, padded panelling, a considered touch that helps with acoustics in a room where a driven ball is not a quiet event.
The wet bar sits at the entertaining end in matt black, its ribbed green tile splashback the same tile used in the cloakrooms, a detail that quietly ties the rooms together. Air conditioning keeps the space comfortable whatever the season or the activity.
Cloakrooms With Real Detailing
As much thought has gone into the three cloakrooms as into the main rooms. Each is a properly finished space, tiled to the client's choice in a textured green that carries the design thread through from the bar, with a backlit mirror and black tap over a wall-hung vanity. Small rooms given full attention are usually a fair signal of how the rest of a building has been approached.
A Turnkey Finish, Coordinated on Site
Inside, the walls are plastered and decorated to a high standard. Swift Unlimited tailor the finishes and the electrical specification to each client, so the sockets, data, lighting and services suit how the room will actually be used, and their turnkey service includes the final connections that bring it all together.
That coordination extended beyond their own trades. The client had a preferred golf simulator supplier he had used before and trusted, and Swift Unlimited worked closely with them to make sure the ceiling height, structure and technical specification were all correct, so the simulator would perform exactly as intended with no compromise on the finish. Getting a building like this right depends on that kind of liaison — with the client's own specialists as well as Swift's team.
The site itself needed work before any of it could begin. Ground preparation was required, and Swift Unlimited coordinated with the client's groundworks contractor on the preparation and on tree removal, so the site was ready for the building to sit on. The whole project was completed in eleven weeks.
The Result
What the client ended up with is a single building that covers sport, fitness, entertaining and practicality without any of them feeling bolted on. Every part of it was designed around how he and his guests would use the space, and it shows.
In the client's words: "Swift understood exactly what we wanted and delivered a space that works perfectly for us and our guests."
A building of this size, specification and complexity — with the simulator infrastructure, three cloakrooms, gym and bar, plus groundworks coordination — sits in the region of £180,000 to £190,000. Swift Unlimited work on projects across the UK at a wide range of budgets, each one designed from a blank sheet for a client who has a clear vision and wants it delivered properly.
Learn More
To find out more about Swift Unlimited's bespoke garden rooms, annexes and extensions, visit www.swiftorg.co.uk. You can contact the team on 01625 875 588 or at support@swiftunlimited.co.uk to discuss your project.
