Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

It's Not the Destination, It's the Journey.

Facilities (Building Identity)

School Floors 

PHOTOS COURTESY OF STONHARD

WHAT PART CAN FLOORS PLAY IN A SCHOOL’S IDENTIFICATION AND SIGNAGE DESIGN?

The key to successfully executing way finding is doing so without overstating it. Floors play an influential role in way finding. Great design and the use of textures and colors in floors can provide way finding in schools without interfering or competing with great architecture. Poured floors, in distinct colors and surfaces, can be installed in free-form designs with inlaid custom motifs, such as sweeping waves, geometric patterns or colored borders that are built into the floor itself.

Seamless floors with inset designs can categorize an area clearly without succumbing to dangling arrows or “in your face” signs, while easily leading people through the labyrinth of campus complexes. Seamless, resilient, urethane floors also provide superior performance; stain resistance, ease of maintenance and noise-reduction, while also providing directional mechanisms. Healthcare environments have relied on this for many years. Using bright, spirited designs in a children’s hospital, for example, differentiates one area or building from another. The use of a theme, such as a candy corridor, is a clever way of marking areas without taking anything away from the design.

School FloorsHOW CAN FLOORS IMPACT SAFETY?

Lighting from the floor up is an effective way of identifying exits and keeping people safe. The use of photoluminescence materials can be incorporated within seamless floors to illuminate paths and lead people to emergency exits, including stairwells.

HOW FAR CAN YOU TAKE SIGNAGE?

There is plenty of room for artistic freedom. Not all floors will allow you the flexibility a seamless floor can. A urethane-poured floor uses design strips to create, almost anything; from arrows and circles to customized logos and free-form designs. Imagine a middle or high school’s science area utilizing planets, atoms and chemistry symbols in the building’s floors to point the way to labs and classrooms. Another other way-finding method is to mix and match surface textures as a way of identifying areas.

This article originally appeared in the School Planning & Management August 2013 issue of Spaces4Learning.

About the Author

Kendall Speer Ellis is the Marketing manager for The Stonhard Group. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Indiana Wesleyan University Schedules Grand Opening for New Welcome Center

    Indiana Wesleyan University recently announced that it will soon open a new Welcome Center on its campus in Marion, Ind., according to a news release. The facility will serve as the home base for prospective students and their families to learn more about the university and student life there. A ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for February 19.

  • Northeastern University Breaks Ground on New Housing Community

    Northeastern University recently announced the groundbreaking of a new student housing community on its campus in Boston, Mass., according to a news release. The university is partnering with American Campus Communities (ACC) for development of the project, which will have the capacity for 1,200 students and has a scheduled completion date of fall 2028.

  • Image courtesy of Kahler Slater

    UW–Madison Announces Completion of Morgridge Hall

    The University of Wisconsin–Madison recently announced that construction is complete on Morgridge Hall, a new academic building, according to a news release. The facility opened September 3 at the start of the fall semester, consolidating the School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences into a single facility for the first time.

  • Quattrocchi Kwok Architects Opens New Office in Denver

    Education planning and design firm Quattrocchi Kwok Architects (QKA) recently announced that it has opened a new office in Denver, Colo., the firm’s third overall. QKA is headquartered in Santa Rosa, Calif., and runs an East Bay Area office in Oakland.