Learning and working in peace

Education Center Leijpark in Tilburg

Due to an increased number of students and the expansion of the adjacent Elisabeth-TweeSteden Hospital, Onderwijscentrum Leijpark (OCL) in Tilburg is moving to a new education and care building with swimming pool and sports hall. The design provides both security and connection with the surroundings. While the exterior has been given a natural soft green color, the use of color inside is warm, calm and predictable. The new building lies on the edge of the care campus and is also designed in that line. Thus, the school has the shape of a closed rectangle, with a patio and roof terrace providing additional space for play and development.

The OCL provides education to children and young people aged 4 to 20 with physical disabilities, severe multiple disabilities, intellectual disabilities, non-congenital brain injury and mental health issues. To ensure that they can receive education in peace and quiet, the classrooms adjacent to the patio are equipped with Silent Air Facade Screens from Mview+. "Normally, these facade screens are used to keep out noise pollution from traffic and industry on the facade," says Waldo Duin, director of Mview+. "In Education Center Leijpark, however, the children's play noise from the patio and courtyard garden in particular needed to be attenuated. For the classrooms on the second floor adjacent to the patio, we were commissioned by Pellikaan Bouwbedrijf bv to supply Silent Air Facade Screens of almost 6 m2 each. Thanks to our facade screens, the teachers can ventilate their classrooms as needed, thus ensuring a pleasant and healthy indoor air quality. WITHOUT the students experiencing noise pollution in the process, as this has been reduced by 75%."

Mview+'s patented Silent Air Sound Barriers are made of pre-stressed safety glass, combined with sound-absorbing coulisses. Duin: "The coulisse are constructed from a frame of perforated aluminum with a special mineral filling, which absorbs the incoming noise at the edge. Depending on the noise protection requirements, our facade screens can be constructed with one, two or three coulisse with variable spacing of 30 to 75 mm. Sufficient free space is maintained between the façade and the noise screen, allowing spray ventilation of the space behind at all times." With the Silent Air Noise Barriers, noise reductions of up to 19 dB for road traffic and 25 dB for rail traffic are possible, he says. "In Education Center Leijpark, a reduction of 6 dB was sufficient. Because the wings can be finished in any color, they blend nicely with the soft green aesthetic of the building."