5 Modern School Design Ideas

Designing schools presents unique challenges, as they must inspire learning and curiosity, while ensuring durability and safety to withstand daily wear and tear. While modern school building designs differ greatly, the challenges remain the same, and they must feature non-toxic and eco-friendly materials and features that promote a more comfortable atmosphere for students and staff.

Here are five modern school design ideas, with the help of Forbo Flooring Systems to inspire your next school project.

1. Use modern and sustainable materials

When designing school buildings, every little detail matters. Every choice, from the layout of the space to the materials used to create it, matters to help create a safe and inspiring learning environment.

Sustainability is a key element in most modern designs, and the same is true for schools. Using sustainable materials demonstrates a school's environmental commitment and provides a healthier, more productive space for students.

An important part of sustainable buildings is the flooring. From Forbo's school flooring collection, you can choose sustainable flooring to suit your needs.

Forbo's flagship Marmoleum collection is made up of up to 98% natural raw materials, including rosin, wood flour, linseed oil, jute, and limestone. This climate-positive (carbon negative) flooring option is available cradle-to-gate without the need for offsetting. This is made possible as the volume of CO2 absorbed by the raw materials used to create linoleum, as the plants, trees, and crops grown exceeds the amount of CO2 emitted during production.

Marmoleum also comes in over 300 different colour styles, allowing you to flex your creativity in all types of rooms. It also holds the Allergy UK Seal of Approval, an important part of any school's specification.

2. Use strong colours to create inviting environments

When designing for schools, there can often be concerns about overstimulation. However, playing it too safe can also create environments that come across as dull and unengaging. There is a balance that can be struck to alleviate any concerns about overstimulation.

You can have white space to help a room breathe while concentrating colour in one area of the classroom. It's best to avoid scattering colour around classrooms as it can look unintentional and unsettling, leading to some staff and students feeling stressed by the lack of order.

Marmoleum flooring, while being sustainable, helps create the right atmosphere to learn. As you can see in the example above, you use colour to create an area for creativity, while combining designs to create a unique space. With a more neutral colour in the area designed for concentration, you can have the best of both worlds in your classrooms.

Alternatively, carpet tiles do offer great comfort in any classroom, helping you create a warm environment within which children can thrive. They also offer the performance benefits required for heavy traffic use.

Flotex flooring provides an extremely durable option as the flocked nature of the flooring provides greater durability, making it ideal for classrooms with high foot traffic and movement of chairs, with the added benefit of underfoot comfort with its soft, textile surface.

With a wide range of colours available and the ability to mix and match sheet, tile, and plank flooring, you can create unique classroom spaces with the flexibility Flotex offers.

3. Clean and welcome entrance areas

There are often multiple entrance areas in schools, as many entry and exit points are required in a building of that size. This means there are multiple areas to create a first impression.

From the exterior of the building through to the interior, you could have the functional Nuway rigid entrance systems, which provide great defence against moisture and soil that students bring in from outside – especially during those colder, wetter days. Around this, you could create warming entrance walls with several images or printed digital wallpaper to help bring students into a warm environment.

Coral clean-off entrance systems offer great flexibility as they can be used alongside Nuway to act as the next barrier to prevent dirt and moisture entering the building. With a range of colours available, you can mix and match your options to create a colourful entrance way while reducing cleaning costs and risks from slips.

With either Coral or Nuway, or both installed in your school, you will also benefit from an extended warranty of 5+ years on all your Forbo flooring if you choose to install their flooring across all rooms in your school.

4. Create striking corridor spaces

It can be easy to create subdued corridor spaces as they must be functional to help get students from classroom to classroom. However, this can be a good opportunity to energise students as they move around the school.

Having a strong colour in hallways helps mark the transition of moving from room to room while breaking the monotony of a long day of learning. For example, you can use Eternal Wood design vinyl sheet flooring to help create a vibrant corridor with the help of brightly coloured walls and storage areas.

Alternatively, Sarlon & Modul'up flooring – part of Forbo's acoustic vinyl collection – provides a broad palette of over 90 colour and design options to fit any space. This will allow you to really get creative with to help each department standout and feel unique, while providing the sound reduction properties required in any busy corridor.

Modul'up also has the benefit of being adhesive free, allowing for quick and easy installation – vital if you need to make fast flooring changes in a busy environment. As part of Forbo's Fast Flooring range, the flooring can also be reused and recycled wherever you need it.

5. Get creative with wayfinding

When new students start school, many worry about knowing where they need to go. A well-designed school will help make that process easier by designing to orient students wherever they go.

Wayfinding devices are visual aids that are accessible to students of all ages and abilities. It's here where you can get creative and even incorporate playful elements to help students navigate the building. For example, by maximising white space, you can use colour as a navigational device in your flooring design – this is also possible by mixing different colours of flooring to help differentiate walking areas from static areas.

Image above: Huygens college, photographer Michael van oostend

Step safety vinyl flooring is perfect for this, helping students navigate the building, while providing areas with character and style. Its high resistance to stains and scratches, as well as the potential to combine bright colours and muted tones, help create school corridor flooring with superior appearance and durability.

All Surestep safety flooring provide R10 slip resistance in busy corridors where an increase in slips may occur. Again, you can mix and match styles to separate the walking and static areas.

Image above: Huygens college, photographer Michael van oostend

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