Bildungscampus Berresgasse, Wien: Das Konzept fasst Kindergartengruppen und Volksschulklassen in Bildungsbereiche zusammen

Austria (Vienna) | Education | noraplan® unita

Individual colour design for rubber coverings in Vienna educational campus

Floors for futuristic education concepts

Sustainable investment in the future: The Educational Campus in Vienna’s 22nd district is the city’s seventh “Campus Plus”. This model closely combines nursery, school and leisure activities. In the new educational institution, opened in September 2019, a total of around 1,100 children, from a young age up to 14, can be supervised and taught. During construction, the City of Vienna - the construction owners - and the planners placed a great deal of importance on environmentally friendly and sustainable materials. Due to having had good experiences on other projects, PSLA Architekten decided to use the robust and environmentally friendly rubber floors from nora systems. More than 6,500 square metres of noraplan® unita was laid in special colours and with a particular thickness of 2.5 millimetres. It was installed in the atrium, hallways, workshops, multipurpose and therapy rooms, as well as in the dining room - in other words, wherever the floor would have to withstand lots of wear. The subtle, puristic look of the rubber floors, with their integrated, natural granite grain, perfectly suits the real wood floors installed in the classrooms.

Building promotes inclusion

The Vienna “Campus Plus” concept involves integrating nursery groups and primary school classes in educational areas, the so-called ‘BiBers’ (from German ‘Bildungsbereich’). The idea is to enable a fluid transition from nursery to school. In addition, the association across groups and classes of children of different ages and the inclusion of children with disabilities is encouraged. The six educational areas are organised into four star-shaped buildings on one level, which also houses the comprehensive functional areas, such as assembly hall, library or multi-purpose rooms. The four educational areas of the nursery and the primary school are designed as two-storey atriums and countless visual connections between them strengthen the feeling of community between the children and the teachers. “The floor takes a lot of wear due the fact that it is used all day and there is a large number of pupils”, is how architects Lilli Pschill and Ali Seghatoleslami described the initial situation. “Therefore the high resistance and robustness of the nora® coverings was a deciding factor for us when choosing a floor”. The durability of the floors is significant in terms of both sustainability and economy. The life cycle costs of floor coverings are more and more being taken into consideration when choosing floors: it’s not just the purchase price that’s decisive, but also longterm, low-cost maintenance and the fact that it will remain in the property form many years. Due to their extremely dense surface, nora rubber floor coverings must not be varnished varnished and as a result are very easy to care for.

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Floor coverings with additional value: High comfort even for wheelchair users

“The floor plays an important role in the educational concept of the campus”, say the architects. The intention is that children use the floor as a surface for doing homework on, or for painting on, but also for playing around and for relaxing on - somewhere to hang out in comfort. If a child trips and falls, the elastic floor will ensure it doesn’t hurt. Rubber floors are also non-slip when wet, which is also a decisive safety factor. The common rooms and multifunctional areas border the patio directly and, in particular in winter, the children will walk indoors in wet shoes. Children who use wheelchairs are also taught in the Berresgasse Educational Campus, it is also important that the floors be comfortable for wheelchair users. The Weinheim factory produced noraplan unita for this project at the architect’s request in a special thickness; at 2.5 millimetres it is thick enough that it offers high ergonomic and acoustic comfort and is also sturdy enough that wheelchair users can move around on it with ease. 

Good acoustics for undisturbed learning and teaching

Due to the open design of the educational centre, it was also important that noise could not spread easily between the individual clusters. Thanks to its high permanent elasticity, the rubber floor coverings dampen the noise of footsteps and help provide a quiet learning atmosphere. The internal atmosphere is also of great importance for a healthy learning environment. The materials used in the construction of the Educational Campus had to fulfil the strict environmental requirements of the City of Vienna. With its “EcoBuy Vienna” initiative, the city is ensuring that all of the products it procures are environmentally friendly and ecologically compatible; nora rubber floor coverings are a perfect match. They are low on emissions and have all internationally significant environmental certificates. As they contain no phthalate plasticizers or halogens, they contribute significantly to good internal air quality. Fire safety was also a significant factor in choosing nora floors: they fulfil fire safety class BflS1.

Coloured rubber floors help you get around and are safe

The multi-functional areas in the Berresgasse Educational Campus are marked out with different coloured floors and stand out from the hallways. “The coloured rubber floor coverings help with zoning areas and marking meeting areas where children from different areas meet”, explains the team from PSLA Architekten. “On top of that, they also define the areas that can be furnished and those that must be kept clear as escape routes”. Three of the five colours of noraplan unita - blue, red and green - are special colours and are co-ordinated with the furniture and doors, which are in the same colours. Two colours, sand and beige, were taken from the standard range. “We very much liked the homogeneity of the materials used in noraplan unita and the combination of rubber and granite”, said the architects.

Sustainable floors with added value and an attractive design: nora rubber floor coverings underpin the educational concept in the Berresgasse Educational Campus in many ways.

Data and facts

Building Berresgasse Educational Campus, Vienna
Architect PSLA ARCHITEKTEN ZT GMBH, Vienna
Installation Year 2018
Photographer Lukas Schaller
Bildungscampus Berresgasse, Wien: Das Konzept fasst Kindergartengruppen und Volksschulklassen in Bildungsbereiche zusammen

Products

noraplan® unita

Rubber floor covering with a perfect combination of permanently resilient rubber and randomly dispersed granite chips. The fine scatter of chips in noraplan® unita lends it a discreet appearance. The design is deliberately purist and simple.

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