Meeting Ministry of Education standards for school flooring
In June 2022 the Ministry of Education released its guide to school property design standards, Designing Schools in Aotearoa New Zealand (DSNZ). This document defines the requirements for school buildings for people involved in the planning and design of schools.
Compliance is mandatory for all new work on state school property, and while the DSNZ does not dictate the use of any specific product, it includes technical standards and guidelines for how products must perform.
Flooring surfaces are divided into five basic categories: entry mats, soft floor coverings, resilient flooring, gym floors and floors for multipurpose space. Here we list the essential points for each category, and show how Advance Flooring’s range can meet or exceed all these requirements.
Entry mats
These are compulsory at entries to building entries and external lifts. They must have enough depth to remove water and debris, be integrated and flush with surrounding flooring, and be at least the width of the entryway. Advance Flooring has a wide range of entry matting that conforms to these criteria, including DecoRIB, Gecko, Dimension and more.
Case study: Wainui School
Soft floor covering
The DSNZ specifies that soft floor coverings must be commercial-grade, heavy-duty carpet tiles. These must be sustainable with low VOCs, be colour-fast and fade-resistant, and with a ‘reasonably long-standing style and pattern to support ongoing maintenance’. Advance’s ongoing history of providing carpet tiles for educational facilities has seen the installation of many square metres of proven ranges and colours in both EcoBacking and ComfortBacking for superior warmth, comfort and acoustics. These carpets are durable and stain-resistant, and have been used in a wide range of New Zealand commercial and educational facilities.
Case studies: Prebbleton School, St Thomas’s School
Resilient flooring
Where soft coverings are not fit for purpose, resilient flooring is to be specified. Sheet vinyl flooring is the preferred solution, wherever suitable. However, in workshop areas or where spiked sports shoes are likely to be used, other appropriate resilient flooring solutions need to be found. Advance’s Tarasafe range particularly suits the DSNZ requirements, being commercial grade and resilient to the activities in these kinds of spaces, sustainable and low VOC, homogenous and seam-welded.
Case study: Westlake Boys High School
Gym floors
Gym flooring must be fit for purpose for sport and durable enough to meet the building’s wider expected uses. This means having baseline shock-absorbing properties appropriate for community-level sport, and if the floor is required to meet national competition standards, its performance must attain the relevant national sporting body standards. Taraflex PVC sports flooring provides comfort, safety and performance, with both multi-use and sport-specific playing surfaces that meet sporting code standards.
Case study: St Andrew’s College
Floors for multipurpose space
The DSNZ guide advises architects and specifiers to ‘explore durable flooring solutions for multipurpose facilities’, and states that the flooring must tolerate point loads such as chair legs or stiletto shoes. The preferred resilient flooring for multipurpose spaces includes sheet or tiled vinyl or rubber products, or durable seamless floors.
Case study: Christchurch Boys’ High School
With more than 40 years' experience in providing flooring for educational facilities, Advance Flooring can provide expert advice on flooring for all usage types of educational space, and products that will meet and exceed the Ministry’s specified requirements.