Altro and Hull Flooring campus upgrade: acoustic and safety lessons for designers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
Altro and Hull Flooring have completed a phased 2,000m² flooring refurbishment at the shared Winifred Holtby Academy and Tweendykes School campus in Hull, targeting acoustic control and slip resistance for mainstream and special educational needs spaces. Altro Wood Comfort and Altro Orchestra deliver 14–15dB sound reduction in corridors and atrium areas, while Altro Walkway 20 and Altro Illustra provide hard-wearing, slip-resistant finishes in general areas and on stairs. All works were executed in school holidays, using weldable sheet systems to minimise disruption and simplify installation sequencing.
Technical Brief
- Altro Wood Comfort specified for “noisy environments”, providing 14dB airborne sound reduction plus underfoot cushioning.
- Altro Orchestra selected where 15dB sound reduction was required, targeting echo control in large-volume spaces.
- Altro Walkway 20 used as a general-purpose safety floor, prioritising abrasion resistance under heavy footfall.
- Altro Illustra installed specifically on stair flights to maximise slip resistance on inclined circulation routes.
- Hull Flooring reported the sheet products as easy to cut and hot-weld, aiding detailing around junctions.
- A thorough pre-construction consultation between Hull Flooring, Altro and the school drove area-by-area product selection.
- Phased replacement over an estimated 2,000m² footprint allowed segregation of workfaces from occupied teaching zones.
- Holiday-only working windows imposed tight programme constraints, requiring efficient sequencing of subfloor prep and welding.
Our Take
Altro’s focus on measured sound reduction in this project signals how flooring manufacturers are competing less on aesthetics alone and more on quantifiable comfort and wellbeing metrics, which is becoming a differentiator across other education and healthcare refurbishments in our coverage.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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