Flooring is an important consideration for any school fitout – all surfaces will get heavy wear; will often get dirt tramped in from outside, plus have all sorts of things spilled on it, so a hard-wearing, easy clean material is important. As more schools are designed to a Green Star rating, selecting the right environmentally-friendly floor rates more in importance.

At Albany Senior High, a neutral colour palette was used as the anchoring base, including for the floors, allowing the intensely coloured walls to stand out. Here the linoleum used in the cafeteria has been cut into large intersecting blocks, a pattern echoed on the coloured feature wall.

Linoleum is an excellent choice for school floors, as a completely natural ‘green’ product – Jacobsen’s Tarkett Linoleum has a multitude of international eco certifications, including Environmental Choice NZ – with a range of bright and neutral colours available.

At both Ormiston Senior School and Stonefields School, carpet tile was chosen to use throughout the classroom spaces. Different colourways of the same pattern provide a sense of continuity without the monotony of having an identical colour scheme throughout. Feature spot colours were chosen at Ormiston, with long coloured strips used at Stonefields. Jacobsen’s Shaw carpet tiles are easy clean solution dyed nylon, available in a vast array of different patterns and colours. Environmental Choice NZ certified, with a cradle to cradle approach, they can be used to achieve a Green Star rating.

View more information on Tarkett Linoleum or Shaw Carpet tile.