Pushing the boundaries of high quality student accommodation deign, Ernest Place, located in Durham City centre is more akin to a luxury hotel, high quality specifications on material finishes were chosen to complement the wow-factor accommodation and associated facilities. Within this brief, a host of Forbo Flooring Systems' products were installed adding significant interest; not only in creating spaces of sophistication and comfort, but also in forming clear circulation zones. The superbly designed interior has led this project winning the annual Fly Forbo 2017/2018 competition.
Ernest Place is a purpose-built student accommodation developed on a previously disused industrial site, within a residential area of Durham. It consists of 362 bedrooms with a mix of five and six bed en-suite cluster flats and various studio apartments. In addition to the living accommodation, the building also has many social areas including a resident’s lounge, sky lounge with external roof terrace, dinner party rooms, a state of the art cinema, fitness suite and even a sauna.
Mark Brown, Director at Greenwell Design, comments: “Student accommodation trends are changing year on year and now go far beyond one communal lounge. For this project, the design was very much centred around students socialising together and creating spaces where they can live, study and foster friendships in a safe and modern environment. The scheme has sought to create a comfortable but cutting-edge facility with high quality materials throughout. Forbo’s flooring helped to accentuate and bring out the quality, working with its range of products to give an enviable finish in a cost effective manner.
“Working with Collegiate AC, which has a well-established link with Forbo, we have successfully used Forbo on all of our student schemes to date for Studious Investment Management. Forbo offers such a wide variety of high quality floors; it makes our life easier in picking and choosing ranges and textures from one supplier. Sarlon XL is particularly popular for our student schemes as it offers a very good, enhanced acoustic rating – and for Ernest Place this natural wood effect vinyl floor covering was used in all the circulation corridors providing a high impact sound reduction of 19 dB, perfect for high traffic areas.
| Location | Durham |
| Interior Design | Collegiate |
