Floraskolan: Rubber Floors Support Modern Design Concept

Floraskolan is a new school in Skellefteå, Sweden, that was built on a former industrial site. The school opened in autumn 2020 and provides space for around 1,000 pupils from pre-school to grade 9. nora by Interface, a brand of the global flooring company Interface, was involved in designing the flooring for the school’s 5,000 plus square metres. In choosing nora rubber floorings for the interior areas of the new school, acoustics and maintenance were important factors for the Skellefteå municipality. “Floraskolan is a modern school with very open spaces, which requires a modern floor with good sound absorption”, explained project architect Anna-Sara Fenander.

A joint decision

Before the construction of Floraskolan began, numerous decisions needed to be made by the project team. Architect Fenander chose the flooring carefully. She even visited a school in Luleå that had already installed nora rubber floor coverings before making the final decision. She was accompanied by the future cleaning staff and some representatives of the Skellefteå municipality’s flooring department to experience a demonstration of their excellent properties. “Everyone, including the students at the school we visited, is very satisfied with the nora rubber floor”, Fenander said. “Following our school tour, the Skellefteå municipality was finally confident enough to invest in the nora floor coverings, too.” Construction was finally able to begin in early summer 2018, with the schedule of having the building completed within two years. “Because time was tight, there was not much room for errors during the project”, explained project manager Johannes Lundgren. “The choice of materials therefore played a particularly important role in ensuring that construction could be completed on schedule.”

Carbon neutral rubber floorings

Despite the time pressure, the school was completed on time and opened in autumn 2020. A big plus was that Floraskolan was awarded a Miljöbyggnad Silver certificate – an environmental certification initiative that forms part of the Sweden Green Building Council. This is a clear evidence that the operators of the project are committed to environmental issues and thinking about the people who will be using the building. nora rubber floor coverings made a significant contribution to this certification, as all Interface floor coverings are carbon neutral throughout their entire product lifecycle, according to the Carbon Neutral FloorsTM programme. nora’s own rubber plant in Weinheim, southern Germany, is continuously working to eliminate or reduce CO₂ emissions and thus further reduce its own carbon footprint. Unavoidable CO₂ emissions are compensated by the acquisition of emission-reduction certificates that are used to finance climate protection projects.