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

  • Washington State University Debuts New Engineering Hall

    Washington State University recently celebrated a dedication ceremony for the new Schweitzer Engineering Hall on its Pullman campus in Pullman, Wash., according to university news. The facility measures 66,288 square feet, and its completion marks the first milestone in a larger university effort to modernize the engineering and design district.

  • 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.

  • Lawrence Group Announces Three New Hires

    Integrated planning and design firm Lawrence Group, based in St. Louis, Mo., recently welcomed three new staff members, according to a news release.

  • GeoCam and UCLA: Modernizing Campus Accessibility Mapping

    In early 2025, UCLA partnered with GeoCam to capture and modernize its pedestrian infrastructure data. The goal was ambitious but clear: to produce a high-accuracy, imagery-backed digital map of every sidewalk, pathway, ramp, and ADA-related feature on UCLA’s 419-acre campus.