Luckman Will Design U. S. Fitness Unit

The National Fitness Foundation has chosen the Luckman Partnership to design the $50-million U. S. Fitness Academy to be built on 190 acres in the Aliso Viejo area of Orange County, according to former Rams football coach George Allan, foundation chairman.

“Unlike fitness centers we visited in Europe, Japan and China, where the emphasis is on training athletes, the primary purpose of the Academy will be to teach the teachers,” Allen said. “It will be a learning center for teachers and volunteers from communities across the nation who are involved in the progress of youth fitness.”

The academy is expected to include classrooms, lecture halls, dormitories, centers for sports medicine and nutrition research, a chapel, libraries, gymnasiums audiovisual production facilities, communications center, administrative offices and food service facilities.

Outdoor facilities such as playing fields, swimming and diving pools, tennis and basketball courts and an amphitheater will be designed as training laboratories rather than as places for competition. Construction is expected to start in about a year, with completion in 1988.