Südhafen day nursery, Münster, Germany
Grass green safety flooring
A prime example for the alternative to demolishing a secularized church can be seen in St. Sebastian’s in Münster. Here, the architects BOLLES+WILSON transformed the former place of worship into a day nursery. And ensuring the safety of children playing in the new indoor/outdoor “play room”, is the seamless safety floor REGUPOL playfix fun.
Project overview
- Colours: May green, pearl white
- Area installed: approx. 540 m²
- Architects: BOLLES+WILSON
Secularized in 2008, the church was originally built in the early 1960s and its elliptical shape makes it architecturally conspicuous in the Münster district where it is located. Equally unusual was the idea of BOLLES+WILSON to convert the church into a day nursery - a concept which they then presented at an architect and investor competition. Their concept won.
Using a “house within a house” design principle, the architects managed to create more space inside the church building. Besides several group rooms which were created this way, 540 m² of this newly acquired space is being used by the nursery as a “playroom”. The trick here is that the 50 x 50 cm former church windows, spread across the entire façade, are now open and provide almost the same climatic conditions as outside. And yet the children can play inside where it’s dry all year round.
“Grass green safety flooring extends the green-on-green concept of the “playroom” interior. Gigantic hand and footprints, embedded in the green floor, encourage children to play with “the scale of things”, says BOLLES+WILSON about the REGUPOL playfix fun safety floor from REGUPOL. In St. Sebastian’s Church, it consists of a two-layer structure – a 30mm thick base layer which provides the fall protection properties and a 10 mm wear layer made of coloured EPDM granulate. With an overall thickness of 40 mm, the maximum fall height is 1.50 m, measured in accordance with DIN EN 1177:2008. The safety floor has a fire-resistant finish to comply with the requirements of fire protection class B1.
REGUPOL is the specialist for the manufacture and installation of synthetic safety flooring for indoor and outdoor areas. With the REGUPOL playfix indoor version, the company can even supply a seamless safety floor specially designed for indoor areas with a PU coating over the entire surface.
