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

  • Myrtle Grove Elementary

    Phased Construction Keeps Students on Campus During Rebuild

    When Escambia County School District needed to replace most of Myrtle Grove Elementary School in Pensacola, Fla., it had three distinct challenges: honor the school's legacy in the community, bring state-of-the-art learning environments to the county, and be seamlessly built on the same site as the active school campus.

  • Wenger Names New Vice President of Sales for Performing Arts, Controls

    Wenger Corporation, which provides products and solutions for music and theater education, performing arts and athletic storage, recently announced the hiring of a new Vice President of Sales for Performing Arts and Controls.

  • URI Cuts Underwater Ribbon on New Ocean Robotics Laboratory

    The University of Rhode Island recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new Ocean Robotics Laboratory at its Narragansett Bay Campus, according to a news release. Two students used a remotely operated vehicle to cut an underwater ribbon in a 30-by-20-foot test tank.

  • Indiana University Launches Capital Campus in D.C.

    Indiana University recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new IU Capital Campus in Washington, D.C., according to university news. The eight-story facility will provide a central hub for the university’s existing programs and business operations based in D.C., uniting them under one roof and providing the opportunity to expand.