St Columba’s is one of Scotland’s highest achieving schools, which is consistently ranked within the top ten independent schools in Scotland. With an Early Years, Junior and Senior School, 700 pupils and national representation at sport, music, debating and public speaking, its standards are high.
The school’s historic 19th century building is situated in Kilmacolm, close to Glasgow. It was the need to replace the flooring within its Junior School’s multi-purpose hall and two corridors located within the school’s 1970’s building extension that has brought the refurbished areas into the 21st century.
Extremely high standards were therefore a priority when carrying out the two flooring renovation projects under the management of St Columba’s newly appointed Facilities Manager. “The hall is an all-round area that is regularly used for activities like assemblies, exams, parents’ evenings and for the younger pupils’ games and gymnastics lessons. We therefore needed an equally all-round, multi-purpose flooring to cater for this diversity and to replace the old and unsightly tiles which were in very poor condition,” said Alasdair McGregor, Facilities Manager, St Columba’s School.
As a result, the school was undertaking two important refurbishments simultaneously and required floor coverings that could be relied upon to provide the functionality, performance and looks required.
Furthermore St Columba’s School wanted to give the juniors’ hall a modern look to reflect its multi-functional purpose. Plus, it wanted to establish a theme around which the hall could be completely refurbished to include walls, curtains and fittings. Gerflor’s Taraflex Multi-Use flooring proved to have the range of designs,
colours and visual appeal necessary on which to base the décor of the entire room.
“We designed the whole assembly hall around the flooring! I’m really delighted with the result and everyone who uses the school comments on it,” explained Alasdair. “We chose Gerflor’s Wood Grey design to create a more contemporary look than a traditional wood effect flooring. Sheet vinyl also gave us an improved overall aesthetic to the finished floor.”
However, of equal importance to aesthetics was durability and so Alasdair McGregor had concerns about the potential damage that high heels and heavy items like pianos and vaulting equipment could cause: “I was re-assured by Gerflor that Taraflex Multi-Use would withstand these things and it has done. I’m very impressed: the floor levels out to be perfectly flush without indentation marks after furniture has to be moved about.”
In a school environment like St Columba’s, building works often need to be scheduled into holiday periods so contractors that can be relied upon to work within the given timescales are essential. A local firm, who had previously worked successfully with the school, carried out the refurbishments to include installing 200 sqm of Taraflex Multi-Use (6.2mm) in Wood Grey in the hall and 100 sqm of Miplolam Elegance Raspberry Grey in the corridors, with both areas completed on schedule.
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