South Cheshire College – one of the country’s best performing colleges of further education – is aiming to lead education in Crewe and Nantwich into a new era. A £75 million new build project, at the college’s Dane Bank site, has included the creation, by BAM Construction, of a low-carbon, environmentally sustainable new campus to replace the existing teaching block.
The futuristic design for the 27,000m² building, by architects Jefferson Sheard, is based on the concept of a village street, with teaching departments functioning almost as shop fronts. Conceived to embody the College’s commitment to social and environmental responsibility, it incorporates features such as natural ventilation, rainwater harvesting, and ‘green roofs’. The choice of Altro safety flooring for the campus also reflected the importance of environmental sustainability for this landmark educational building.
A wide range of Altro safety flooring products has been installed, providing surfaces that are perfectly suited to levels of traffic and the specific acoustic and slip prevention priorities throughout the building.
High traffic areas, such as the serveries and corridors, have been fitted with Altro Suprema, incorporating Altro Easyclean Maxis Technology for superior cleanability and colour retention. Co-ordinated neutral shades create a cool, sophisticated look for the central communal area, with the bold colour option Helios bringing an edgier modern feel for staircases.
Altro Stronghold 30 – a 3mm thick flooring which excels in wet and greasy conditions, is providing outstanding slip resistance, ease of cleaning and comfortable surfaces for employees in the kitchen areas.
Teaching spaces benefit from the hugely popular Altro Walkway 20 flooring – an attractive and durable 2mm flooring, whilst Altro Impressionist II is provided an eye-catching but easy maintenance flooring for the college’s hair and beauty salon.
In the college’s laboratories, Altro Designer 25 – a 2.5mm thick safety flooring which includes coloured quartz crystals in exciting base colours – is creating a clean and uncluttered environment which is highly-practical as well as attractive.
Sustainability
Altro has made significant advances in environmental sustainability. Altro safety flooring products achieve the highest possible BRE Global environmental ratings of A+/A in the major building applications of Health, Education, Retail and Commercial. In addition, all Altro safety flooring is 100% recyclable and contains post-consumer waste as an integral raw material. Some safety flooring products have up to 20% and some resin products up to 30% recycled content.
Altro is one of two founder members of Recofloor – the vinyl flooring industry’s take back scheme for post-use vinyl – which launched in September 2009. As the first manufacturer capable of recycling safety flooring in house, Altro collects and recycles all the safety flooring on behalf of Recofloor, irrespective of manufacturer. A similar scheme has been set up by Altro for recycling of wall cladding.
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