Colorful floors. Quiet hallways.

colorful floor

For a facility with plenty of open space and very few doors, the ability to absorb the noise of kids constantly switching classrooms was a big deal.

Reading friends of Aledo, Texas needed new flooring for their recent renovation. As a school with a pre-K and kindergarten curriculum, they had several requirements for this new flooring: It had to be fun. It had to help with noise. And it had to be easy to clean.

Working with Jeff Green of FloorPartners, the school chose Interface’s Studio Set™ luxury vinyl tile (LVT) for its classrooms and hallways. Multi-colored planks run from classroom to classroom in bright zig-zag patterns. In choosing the flooring, he says, “Studio Set had everything we wanted as far as sound quality, and the versatility of the product allowed us to create a really unique design.”

Flooring that performs on many levels

Almost a year after completing the renovation, Reading Friends owner Diane Taylor is a convert. “I was hesitant [about how the LVT] would absorb the constant noise of the kids switching classrooms, but it really has worked!” she says. For a facility with plenty of open space and very few doors, that’s a big deal. “I am so impressed by how easy [Interface LVT] has helped absorb the sound in our hallways and classrooms.”

Additionally, intensive floor maintenance has become a thing of the past. School staff are able to spend more time with the kids and less time making the floor look nice. According to Diane, “it really was the perfect flooring for the high-traffic, highnoise areas of our school.”

In fact, because of the success of this project, the entire Aledo Independent School District is considering designating Interface carpet and LVT as part of its standard flooring for all its facilities. From experience, Jeff Green explains, “Interface carpet tile is a real idiot-proof product. And as far as LVT, it’s a matter of getting people to experience it in their schools to trust that it’ll meet their needs.”

interface.com

This article originally appeared in the School Planning & Management September 2019 issue of Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • 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.

  • Classical building columns display digital data streams

    The Campus Nervous System: Why Facilities Risk Is Now a Leadership Issue in Higher Education

    Facility performance now intersects with safety, compliance, on-campus experience, institutional reputation, and financial resilience. That places it firmly on the leadership agenda.

  • California High School Opens New Classroom Building for 7th-, 8th-Graders

    Santa Rosa City Schools in Santa Rosa, Calif., recently announced the completion of a new classroom building for Piner High School. As the campus transitions to a Junior/Senior High School, the facility will play home to the school’s new population of seventh- and eighth-grade students.

  • Designing for Every Mind

    Learning environments have the power to shape not just what students know, but who they become. When a school is designed with genuine empathy—for the full range of ways students think, sense, and engage with the world—it becomes more than a building. It becomes a catalyst for growth, confidence, and belonging. That is the animating idea behind neurodiverse design, and it is one that is transforming how more architects and designers are thinking about school design.