SCHOOL GETS WATER-FRIENDLY MAKEOVER

The Athena School is a friendly, family-orientated school located on the heritage premises of an old convent in Newtown, Sydney. The progressive school features beautiful grounds with huge camphor laurel and eucalyptus trees that provide a naturally shaded environment for students to work and play in.

Since its inception in 2000, the Athena School has been upgrading the site’s facilities, including renovating an amenities block, upgrading the heritage listed library building, and installing solar power and water saving fixtures on the grounds to make the school as environmentally sustainable as possible.

The School’s latest improvement project is an upgrade of all outdoor areas, including replacing the asphalt areas with permeable ground cover to ensure a suitable and safe play space that also allows water to soak into the ground and irrigate the site’s many trees.

Working in conjunction with Street Coolers - a community-focused organisation that aims to cool cities by 2 degrees by 2020 - the Athena School sought to create a fantastic new play area for its students. Unfortunately, the area due to undergo transformation presented major water pooling issues, causing the school to search for a child-friendly and environmentally sustainable solution. Stoneset provided the perfect answer.

As experts in permeable paving products, Stoneset was able to provide the most suitable solution to makeover the space. A bright mix of 6mm Apollo Ash was used, laid at a 25mm depth, to create the ideal permeable play surface.

Now fully porous, the space no longer presents a pooling issue and works generously to support the plant life around it. Safe to say, the school was overjoyed with the outcome.

View the new Athens School playspace at work in the video below.

To view the full range of permeable paving products on offer from Stoneset, visit their website.