Altro give flagship school affordable style and safety
Altro Walkway 20, Altro Aquarius, Altro Whiterock, Altro Suprema, Altro Stronghold 30
Altro products have played a large part in the construction of a new £15 million flagship school in Liverpool, where safety, affordability and style were top priorities.
Notre Dame Catholic College, in Everton, opened its doors to 850 pupils in September and was built to an innovative design, proving that high quality spacious schools can be constructed to an austerity cost plan.
The first of 10 new schools that will be built in Liverpool over the next few years, Notre Dame has an adaptable and flexible structure. Altro Suprema was specified for circulation and classroom areas, Altro Aquarius in the showers, Altro Walkway for store areas and toilets, Altro Stronghold 30 in the kitchen and Altro Whiterock for the kitchen walls.
Altro products were chosen due to their proven success on other school projects in terms of safety, aesthetics and maintenance.
All Altro safety flooring has lifetime sustained slip resistance, giving peace of mind for safety for years and years to come.
The products also fitted the brief for value for money for a project built to an austerity plan.
Main contractor Willmott Dixon collaborated with the architect and school to choose the styles and colours for the flooring and wall cladding, working to meet varied criteria. For example, the kitchen floor needed to be very practical and safe, so Altro Stronghold with its very high slip resistance was an ideal choice.
Altro floors at the school were installed by Active Flooring Solutions. Managing Director Ed Greenhough said: "This project was very well organised by Willmott Dixon and we had very good access to the building. We had eight floor layers on site for three months, which for a job of this size was very efficient.
"Altro flooring is great to work with and the installation went very well. The welds were neat, the coving sharp - it looked very good indeed. Altro were very supportive and gave us excellent service throughout."
Altro Whiterock wall cladding in the kitchen was installed by MI contracts. Managing Director David Heath said: "We are an Altro Whiterock Premier Installer, so we have an excellent longstanding relationship with the company. We think Altro Whiterock is undoubtedly the best PVC wall cladding on the market. It is very supple and easy to work with and it really comes into its own in the winter because it doesn't crack or chip in the cold like many other products. The installation went very smoothly."
Matthew Harris, Quantity Surveyor with Willmott Dixon, explained why Altro was the perfect partner for this project: "Altro worked with us to provide the right products at the right price, in particular the flooring to the ground floor atrium area which had to be both a finished decorative surface finish and also be tough enough to potentially be used by other parties with extremely high levels of traffic at the weekend."
Kevin Foy, Facilities Manager at the school, commented: "There has been excellent feedback about how great the school looks. Our grand opening was attended by around 300 delegates, and everyone was very impressed. The floors look superb and are proving very practical and easy to maintain.
"The Altro Whiterock wall cladding is 100% better than what we had before. It is very hygienic, practical and easy to clean."
Download the PDF