Schools closed due to unsafe floor constructions
Again, a precautionary teaching building is being closed in higher education: the seven-year-old building X of the Windesheim University of Applied Sciences in Zwolle. Technical investigation showed on Saturday that the floor construction may be unsafe.
Picture: Windesheim Zwolle
Like the parking garage at Eindhoven Airport, which partly collapsed on May 27, building X has so-called Bubble Deck floors, a type of wide-slab floors that save weight and material. This week, further technical research should determine whether the building is safe or not.
Pricing
The striking education building, which won an architectural prize in 2011, offers space for 350 students from the business, media and law courses and more than XNUMX employees. "If it is disappointing, it must be closed for a longer period," said a spokesman. The exams after the autumn break can possibly be taken in the sports halls of the university college.
Last Thursday evening, the two-year-old Polak building of the Erasmus University was evacuated. Here too, a national investigation had shown that the floor construction was possibly the same as that of the parking garage in Eindhoven.
Precaution
Wide-slab floors were also used in the construction of the Spectrum and Flux buildings of the Eindhoven University of Technology, but TU Delft's own research shows that these are different, safe constructions. As a precaution, eight buildings in Rotterdam have now been closed.
In Krimpen aan den IJssel they also suffer from the floor slabs. Today the Krimpenerwaard College secondary school is closed, because the school board cannot guarantee that the floorboards are safe, Rector Ad Keller reports in a letter to parents and students. The rector of the college today hopes for more information about safety. The exams that were scheduled for today, students must catch up at a different time.
Broad school
Last week in Hoeven in North Brabant decided by the council to keep the new community school closed, because the supplier and the contractor could not demonstrate that the floor is safe. In the new school pupils would come from primary schools Reuzelaar and Lindenlommer. The playgroup would also move to the new building. The toddlers and students have to stay longer in their old school building. These buildings have to be redecorated.
'We find this very annoying,' says mayor Jobke Vonk-Vedder of the municipality of Halderberge. 'We wish the pupils and teachers a good start in a new school building. Board chairman Jos Krebbekx of the Borgesius Foundation, which includes Reuzelaar and Lindenlommer, says that no risks are being taken. 'The teams of the school and the preschool will, under the given circumstances, do their utmost to further shape the educational learning process as adequately as possible.'
