Reach Free School

Altro Serenade reduces noise and increases comfort for school

Issue

The newly-constructed £17 million Reach Free School has created places for 840 secondary level students in a cutting-edge environment. Architect ADP’s concept for the school was an open plan space with a lot of openings that connect the various floors. This meant the potential for noise and reverberation throughout the school was quite high. The Reach Free School specified vinyl flooring rather than carpet, for robustness and ease of cleaning. It was also important for the school that the flooring would bring comfort underfoot. Reducing noise throughout the new building was a priority.

Approach

ADP consulted an acoustician at the early stages of the design, and were advised that a flooring with an acoustic rating greater than 17dB would give significant reduction in noise from footfall, chairs scraping in the classrooms and overall background noise volume.

Altro Serenade flooring was recommended by Horizontal Limited, which installed 1500m² of the flooring on the ground and first floor in all communal areas, stairs and classrooms.

Solution

At 3.9mm thick, Altro Serenade provides 19dB impact sound insulation to reduce noise and provide comfort underfoot. The Reach Free School selected the shade Encore, a pale grey with a good textural design which complements the strong school colours of teal blue and purple.

"I would recommend this flooring to anyone that wants a hard-wearing, great looking modern solution that also helps to reduce noise and increase comfort in the environment."

Richard Booth Headteacher at The Reach Free School

"Altro Serenade fit the brief perfectly. It’s ideal for this type of busy, noisy environment where there is a great deal of foot traffic. Many manufacturers struggle to make good acoustic flooring that doesn’t mark or indent but, with Altro Serenade, Altro has cracked this issue with a superb quality product."

Jonathan Bown MD, Horizontal Limited