Flooring significantly contributes to creating the overall impression and well-being in the space. Even more so if it is a top medical workplace. The Centre for Disease Treatment, Science, and Medical Research in Trencin will be the most modern Slovak urology clinic. The use of modern materials, technologies, and skills has created visually ATTRACTIVE FLOORING that, with its functionality, meets the MOST DEMANDING CRITERIA.
Floors in hospitals and private health centres must meet very specific loads and strict hygiene standards. However, the aesthetic impression is equally important – in a pleasant environment, patients are treated better. Nobody doubts that today.
The nine hundred square meters of floor space on three floors of the new urology clinic is divided into three functional categories:
- operating rooms and infirmaries,
- communication and public spaces,
- offices and patient rooms.
Regarding the functionality of individual types of spaces, several materials and technologies are used on the floors. However, they have a common basis: the application of approximately five millimetres thick cementitious self-levelling screed. In this case, its task was to level the cement base coat and create a highly resistant base under the thread layer. Epoxy penetration was applied to this thin, resistant levelling, followed by either an epoxy antistatic screed or a polyurethane screed – depending on the type of space.
Realization and the result…
It is worth mentioning that with the additional surface treatment, the floor is ready to meet the demanding requirements of the medical and research centre.
Innovation and beauty in simplicity
It is said that chance favours the prepared mind. The preparatory phase of many projects involves a test try. Its goal is usually to check how specific materials work. The importance of such tests grows in direct proportion to the innovation of technological processes. If you plan to implement completely new technology in your process, the saying “What is difficult in training will become easy in a battle” is doubly true.
There are never many attempts at “real application”. In addition, the ripening time of the mixtures used limits them. The corridors and public spaces of the Trencin’s Centre for Disease Treatment were designed in a steel-gray colour with a decent but at the same time unique pattern of spatial maps. This was to be achieved by compression blow forming of the still unhardened multi-component polyurethane mixture. It was this technology that was tested in the first round under the supervision of an experienced master in the field.
The exact air pressure, the distance of the compressor from the floor, the manoeuvring speed, and other parameters were the basis for success and overcoming this challenge. As a result, Proreco has once again gained unique “know-how” in its portfolio.
Hygiene to details
Skirting boards are an added value not only in terms of aesthetics. They add a spatial dimension to the floors, smoothing the transitions between the treads and walls. The difficult-to-clean slit at the point of contact of the floor with the wall is a major hygienic problem, especially in hospital areas. This can also be solved with skirting boards. More than seven hundred meters of skirting boards were installed in the Trencin facility, the primary function of which is to increase the hygienic standard. Each of them has the colour of the respective floor.
So that it does not give an electric shock and damage the devices
Have you ever thought that we can create an electrostatic charge with each movement? We often do not even register its subsequent discharge. However, there are facilities where equipment is particularly sensitive to these small electrostatic discharges.
Even more serious is that even the smallest micro discharges can affect the properties of semiconductors, thereby limiting the functions of important devices in the building. Operating rooms and examination rooms of the urology clinic have just such devices at their disposal. Therefore, in some parts of it, antistatic treatment of floor surfaces has been proposed.
The essence lies in the application of a completely conductive intermediate layer and subsequently in the application of the final screed, which contains dispersed carbon fibres. The conductive coating is connected to the grounding system of the building in several places. Such a solution reliably prevents the occurrence of chaotic discharges and grounds them in a coordinated manner. The functionality of conductive properties is checked and measured by current standards, which focus on leakage resistance to ground and surface resistance of a person to the floor.
The month that was worth it
A complete month of working with alternatives to epoxy and polyurethane compounds, moulding, patterning with air compressors, and all this in a specific and demanding medical environment was an experience that just doesn’t “lie around”. An important part was the preparation, which again pointed out the importance of this phase and ensured the smooth-running process in time and space.
The newly created floors will be the basis for the treatment of patients and research in the field of urology – all at the clinic, which is currently the largest in entire former Czechoslovakia.
M.D. Roman Sokol, M.P.H: The floors fit perfectly into our concept
Interview with a doctor and the owner of the Trencin’s Center for Disease Treatment, Science and Medical Research
From the description of work procedures, it is clear that you have chosen non-traditional, highly functional, and at the same time highly aesthetic floors. Have you had this in mind from the beginning?
Our entire clinic is unconventional. We are building a urology centre that is unparalleled in Slovakia. Under one roof, we will “house” the top diagnostics and treatment of urological patients, i.e., daily medical, and surgical practice, together with research and science, which will move this medical field into the future. We care about the most modern equipment. Proreco floors fit perfectly into this concept.
Did the final result fit in it? Did you like the finished realization?
Yes. We care a lot about the environment in which we work and treat patients. We are utmost satisfied with the realization and the resulting effect that the floors have delivered to our premises, as well as the cooperation with Proreco. I perceive them as a team of experts that you can rely on, no matter what high standard of floors you are looking for.
PROJECT FACTS:
Year of realization: 2020
Place of realization: Trencin
Realized area: 900 m2 divided into three stories
Type of floor treatment: epoxy, antistatic, and polyurethane screeds
Exceptionality: patterned polyurethane floor
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