Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Transforming Walls into Versatile Surfaces

  • 05/01/18
fabric wall

Fabric walls from Fabricmate Systems help personalize classroom spaces and provide better acoustics.

A growing number of schools are transforming their classroom, lecture hall, auditorium, and hallway walls into vibrant, multipurpose, functional surfaces by installing unique fabric wall covering systems.

By adding these wall systems, they are not only personalizing and enlivening drab spaces, but also improving the learning environment while eliminating a major source of routine maintenance and re-painting.

“Teachers like to display student work as inspiration, and staple student work or study aids to the classroom walls from floor to ceiling, which can require frequent wall touch up,” says Brad Heinecke, a maintenance technician at Orange Lutheran High School.

When staples, tacks or tape are used as a fastening method this inevitably takes a toll on painted walls. This necessitated repainting each classroom every two to three years. To do such work including touch-up in this and other areas, the school once employed a full-time painter.

The high school opted to install fabric wall coverings from Fabricmate Systems, a global supplier of wall surface solutions.

With the help of one other person, Heinecke installed the system. “Once you get the process down, it goes up pretty quick,” he says.

Heinecke says the fabric covered wall system is holding up extremely well in the classrooms.

“Everyone is seeing how great the wall coverings are, and are requesting installation this summer,” says Heinecke.

Bare painted walls are an acoustics nightmare.

To counter this, the fabric wall covering’s backing absorbs sound rather than reflecting it. This reduces echoes and reverberations and makes it easier to hear and understand speech or audio with greater clarity.

When school administrators want to refresh the walls or even change the colors the fabric can be replaced by school maintenance personnel and the only cost is for the new fabric itself. The backing and track system do not typically need to be replaced.

www.fabricmate.com

This article originally appeared in the School Planning & Management May 2018 issue of Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • Architectural Power for the Modern Campus Landscape

    For generations, an outdoor classroom only required a textbook and a patch of grass. Today, not only has the laptop replaced the printed pages, the rise of agile learning has turned campuses into study halls with students listening to lectures and researching topics from quads, gardens, and plazas. The challenge for architects and facility managers is to provide connectivity without cluttering the landscape with visual eyesores or creating safety hazards with extension cords.

  • Colorado School District Breaks Ground on Unified PK–12 Campus

    The Haxtun School District No. Re-2J in Haxtun, Colo., recently announced that ground has been broken on a renovation/addition project that will unite its two schools, Haxtun Elementary and Haxtun Jr/Sr High School, according to a news release.

  • Q&A: How to Prevent Kitchen Grease Fires in Commercial Kitchens

    School cafeterias and university dining halls serve thousands of meals daily, relying on high-heat equipment like fryers, grills, and ovens. While these operations keep students fed, they also generate significant grease-laden vapors. Without proper controls, this grease becomes a silent fire threat. As a certified exhaust cleaning specialist and business coach who has helped hundreds of institutional facilities achieve NFPA 96 compliance, I emphasize that proactive grease management isn’t optional; it’s a core fire/life safety practice.

  • Montclair State University Starts Construction on $120M STEM Building

    Montclair State University in Montclair, N.J., recently broke ground on a new $120-million Interdisciplinary Science Building, according to university news. The university partnered with HoK Architects for the project’s design, and it’s scheduled to open in time for the 2028–29 academic year.