Published: 27 October 2016

Written by Carroll Seating

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Categories: laboratories

There’s no better place to learn about science, using practical methodology, than a school science lab. Few things help complement a student’s learning quite like, a well-taught lab. But if you don’t currently have a space that makes labs fun and interesting for students, you may be a bit frustrated. These tips can help you design the ideal school laboratory space.

Think Location: There are many things to consider when you decide to build a lab. First, make certain you have plenty of natural light. That’s not only for experiments that demand it, but also to help give students the lighting they need to understanding things like color and appearance changes. Natural light isn’t the only location-based concern, though. Good ventilation is too. You need to ensure you have enough space to install a fume hood and you need to make sure the entire area is well ventilated just in case something should go wrong.
Think Storage: You’ll need many different pieces of equipment to perform experiments in a school science lab, and the more storage you can build into the space, the better off you’ll be. You want to be sure that you have the space to store your equipment where it can be easily reached throughout the year and where you can access it safely at any point in time. You may even want to consider dual use lab furniture to make certain you have plenty of storage and lots of room to work at the same time.
Think Layout: The plan you create for the room matters too. Most guides recommend planning 60 square feet for upper level students. Keep in mind, though, that most school labs have to do double duty, so if possible, you’ll want to incorporate individual learning areas as well as lab tables, sinks, and gas hookups. There are many different floor plans online to search to help you decide what might be right for your space, and utilizing the help of a project manager can also ensure you get the design you want for your space.
Think Necessities: You’re going to need a few things for a great lab including gas taps, electrical outlets, sinks, and more. That may mean including additional contractors, but you’re building a lab to help educate students well into the next generation, so the key is to get everything you need the first time.

School science labs aren’t like regular classrooms, and that means they need specialized lab furniture that other spaces just don’t. As you get ready to design a school laboratory that meets your needs, please contact Carroll Seating Company to get the one-on-one help you need.

Published: 19 October 2016

Written by Carroll Seating

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Categories: Seating Solutions

What’s the Buzz in Interior Architecture?

U.S. commercial building construction spending has been on the rise for quite some time. The market shows little sign of slowing in the near future, too, which means more commercial buildings are being designed and re-designed to meet the needs of small and large companies alike. What’s hot in commercial interior architecture design? Take a look at three of the biggest trends:

The Big Picture

Now more than ever before, commercial architectural designs look at the bigger picture. They take into account that they’re interconnected with their surroundings and work to play that up. For example, most designs look at the view from the building, the public message the structure sends out, and even historical significance. The goal is to create and innovate while ensuring respect for existing landmarks remains in place.

Sustainability

Along with a focus on the big picture comes a closer look at how long that big picture will last and what environmental impact the design might have. Commercial architectural designs still focus on simple aspects of sustainability like energy efficiency, but they’re also look at power generation through wind and solar options, better water conservation, and unique building materials that can help create carbon neutrality and resilience.

Healthy Workplace

Today’s commercial architecture also seeks the opportunity to create a productive workforce through a healthier workplace. Incorporating options like natural lighting, noise control technology, and choices that help people thrive are all typically additions. What’s more, though, is that incorporating today’s wearable tech with the building’s technology is also becoming increasingly possible to help people know how and when to work.

Modern commercial interior architecture is changing fast, and Carroll Seating Company is keeping up with those changes to help design workplaces that do more for your workforce. To learn more about what we can do, contact us today.

Published: 13 October 2016

Written by Carroll Seating

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Categories: Lecture and Theater Seating

Lecture halls can seem a bit daunting to many college students. Even if they’ve been on campus for some time, nothing is quite as overwhelming as a lecture hall filled with bodies. Fortunately, there are a few steps you can take to make certain they are conducive to student learning with nice lecture hall seating. These tips can help.

Give Students What They Need: At the bare minimum, students are going to need some kind of desk option that either comes out from the seat (if your lecture halls sometimes serve as an auditorium) or seating that swings away from built in tables. A writing surface is hardly all that students require today, though. They may also need electrical outlets or charging stations to hold laptops, tablets, and phones so they can better learn the material being taught.
Offer Comfort: There’s the hard and sturdy seating of yesteryear, then there’s the comfort many have come to expect in today’s lecture halls. A plush seat is the single best way to make certain students are comfortable enough to spend their lecture time productively learning, not constantly shifting in the seat to make certain their extremities don’t fall asleep!
Work with Your Space: There are so many different seating options available for lecture halls today. At Carroll Seating Company, we know that dimensions and spacing are nothing short of critical, so we offer you more options than many other companies, helping you design a lecture hall that students will truly enjoy attending day after day.

Ready to do more and make certain your students are in a space where they can learn? Contact us today to work one-on-one with a project manager who will work to understand the culture you’re trying to create on campus with lecture hall seating solutions.

Published: 7 October 2016

Written by Carroll Seating

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Categories: Auditorium Seating Options

What are the keys to building a solid congregation? What makes every service just a little more successful? The ability to create a space for fellowship and learning, and for most churches, that space is the sanctuary. Designing a sanctuary that makes everyone feel welcome, can be a challenge in and of itself, and many churches are facing at least one of these bigger problems with their church auditorium seating.

Problem One – Space in Auditorium Style Seating

Sanctuaries are actually smaller than you think they are. Think of the 80% rule. Once you’ve filled 80% of the seats, your sanctuary is full. Wondering why? There are a few reasons. First, very few parishioners like to sit up front and that’s especially true with new visitors. Second, people want enough personal space. Finally, no one wants to split their family just so they can find those last few seats. So, if you’re hitting that 80% capacity before the service ever even begins, you may have a real issue on your hands. In fact, it may be harming the growth of your congregation.

The solution? Consider expanding your sanctuary seating capacity. The right church auditorium seating from Carroll Seating Company can help give you the space lift you need and ensure a few more people make it to your congregation every Sunday morning.

Problem Two – Auditorium Seating

Many of today’s pastors will tell you that allowing more interaction and participation is the key to creating a strong congregation for one simple reason – it builds fellowship. If you’re looking to create a culture that encourages connections, redesigning the seating is the only real choice you have, even if you already have auditorium style seats. It may be possible to find church seating chairs and create a very different format to every service that will help build the culture you’re looking for.

Whether you need more space in an auditorium style seating arrangement or your current church seating arrangement just isn’t working for you, we can help. Give us a call today to learn more.

Published: 28 September 2016

Written by Carroll Seating

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Categories: Locker Solutions

Police officers are such a valuable and important aspect of our society, so it’s never a waste to make things easier for them. This includes giving them the best equipment, the best security, and the most trustworthy atmosphere, especially at their police station. Highly specialized, extremely durable, secure, and roomy police station specialty lockers and locker rooms are a subtle yet magnificent way to improve their daily functioning. Specialty lockers will help to provide a positive and secure environment.

Carroll Seating Company offers state of the art welded metal lockers that assure safety. This is incredibly important when considering all of the potentially dangerous and expensive gear police officers need. These can also be used as evidence lockers because of their formidable construction and hard to breach security. By providing adequate specialty locker storage, equipment can be taken care of well and be kept safe from any tampering or damage.

Another aspect of our American made, police lockers is that they can be personalized. This touch of home can be a welcomed sight when having to work in such a high stress and potentially dangerous field. This combination of security and comfort goes a long way and is something that can really make a difference in a station.

Combining security and comfort is a perfect way to compliment any police or security force. This can provide untold comfort knowing your equipment has not been tampered with and will perform the way it is supposed to. This is also important for guaranteeing a personal space that is well protected and has character.

While it may seem silly that security is needed within a police locker room, the truth is this is one of the most important aspects of station security. When you know that everything is safe and protected at work, then you can really put your all into the job.

Published: 22 September 2016

Written by Carroll Seating

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Categories: Cafeteria and Food Court Seating

School cafeterias and cafeteria tables, they can be a janitor’s worst nightmare; the teacher’s most uncontrollable situation, and the students’ wild feeding ground filled with flung food, social stratification, and any other craziness you get with a room filled with eating kids. Don’t panic just yet, because Carroll Seating Company is here to help.

Carroll Seating Company offers dynamic school cafeteria tables and layouts that can be specifically tailored to any situation with students of any age. Their products and design will help maximize seating capacity while creating a dynamic and stimulating atmosphere, a process that can greatly improve the behavior and mood of the room. When people have an environment with different styles of table and chairs, they will be much more mentally stimulated.

An important aspect of cafeteria layout is smooth walkways and distance between tables. While it may seem efficient to cram people in like sardines, this is an easy way to lead to negative behavior and easily jammed thoroughfares. No one wants to wait in line to clean off and return their trays, so it is important to keep things flowing. This intimate understanding of spatial dynamics and efficiency runs deeply with Carroll Seating Company, so even getting in contact with them for organizational help can lead to improvements.

Furthermore, our equipment is easily moveable so that the floors can be cleaned and the room rearranged. These folding cafeteria tables store well so if the cafeteria needs to be used for another purpose, it is easy to accommodate. With cafeterias being one of the main open spaces of a school, it is essential to make sure it is adaptable. Furthermore, it shouldn’t take an army of people to fold the tables and clear the room. With Carroll Seating Company tables and chairs, everything is easy to use, light, and straightforward.

So with a newly updated cafeteria, what kind of changes will you see?

With a smooth layout, the time from students entering the cafeteria to having eaten and exited will take much less. This means there isn’t as much down time and idleness, which is sometimes the cause of misbehavior. Teachers will also be able to move around swiftly in order to effectively handle situations.
The room will be very easily rearrangeable, giving it a very dynamic purpose that not only focuses on being the cafeteria. This is also great for cleaning.
The mix of table and chair styles will give people a sense of ease with the improved stimulation. The layout of a room has a great influence on people, so make sure it’s the right influence.

Cafeterias are like the heart of a school, giving students nutrition and allowing them to relax from their studies. Making this room as wonderful as possible means students will have an overall more positive day and are more successful, plus this makes things a lot easier for the school’s staff.

Published: 14 September 2016

Written by Carroll Seating

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Categories: Seating Solutions

3 Reasons Your Venue Needs High Quality Portable Seating

What really makes a venue perfect, from the smallest space to a vast expanse, is the aspect of versatility. By making a space highly adaptable it takes on a much wider range of possibilities. This means that logistics are easier because things can be re arranged and tailored for specific events, making event planning a bit more doable. The easiest way to accomplish this is with high quality portable seating. The following three aspects alone will make you wonder why you’ve ignored the importance of folding chairs for so long.

Like mentioned above, adaptability is one of the main draws of folding chairs. By being easy to arrange and store, a venue has the opportunity to host a large number of people while also allowing for something requiring a lot of room with little obstruction. Furthermore, the layout can be adjusted for many different types of events such as weddings, sporting events, and parties.
Another great perk of having quality padded folding chairs is they will stay nice for longer than other permanent option. Because they can be stored, they will be sheltered if the venue is outdoors. Also, they can be preserved from everyday use if they are not needed for smaller events. This means nice things stay nice.
Being easy to fix and replace is like the cherry on top of the mountain of perks of folding chairs. If something breaks, then it is only one piece that needs to be replaced instead of the entire set. This greatly insulates venues from the effects of heavy usage.

Steel folding chairs and other high quality portable seating provides venues with great opportunity and potential. They also don’t need to be flimsy and uncomfortable, because when you purchase from a passionate company like Carroll Seating Company, you might even forget that these are folding chairs.

Published: 8 September 2016

Written by Carroll Seating

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Categories: Bleacher seating

Inspecting, improving, and repairing equipment regularly is the key concept of long life. Taking care of things means continual and flawless operation as well as reduced overhead, since you don’t have to replace something that is long past being fixed. When you inspect bleachers at your site, you’re taking preventative measures that are invaluable.

This idea of continual care is especially necessary for things that are subject to a high rate of use and even life outside. What’s more is that in places like schools, which typically don’t have a lavish amount of overhead, might find themselves in a pickle if they continually need to buy new equipment. So, consider these:

Three Keys to Effective Bleacher Inspection

Don’t wait to do it! Routine bleacher inspections are great, but don’t make this a rare occurrence. Instead, consider doing so at the end of each sporting season so there is time to address any problems while they aren’t in use. It’s also nice to conduct quick inspections on outdoor bleachers after inclement weather in order to make sure no damage was sustained.
Inspect all elements. When conducting a bleacher inspection, make sure to look holistically at the situation in order to take all aspects into account. This involves things like the ground around the bleachers, trees, other things that might be near the bleachers and anything else that might be part of the equation. If recent bleacher maintenance has been performed, add that to your checklist.
Consult all available resources. Safety codes are different everywhere, so it is important to be caught up with all the information. Furthermore, there are always things to be learned from other users of the equipment and even the manufacturers themselves. Because of this, it certainly doesn’t hurt to be in contact with the manufacturers in order to learn of any recent improvements.

If you’re looking for information on bleacher upkeep, need professional help to inspect bleachers inspection or repair, or just want to consider what other options there are, contact Carroll Seating Company to see what you’ve been missing out on.

Published: 30 August 2016

Written by Carroll Seating

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Categories: Casework & Millwork

Carroll Seating Company recently finished a beautiful custom millwork job at Round Lake High School in Round Lake, IL. CSC created a wall cap on the stairs that was manufactured by Kohout Woodwork.

This job is an excellent example of how Carroll Seating can excel in customizing. This job may look easy, but it took a lot of field measurements and talent went into making this cap look seamless in the field.

For more information on custom millwork for your school or office, contact Carroll Seating Company today at 847-434-0909.

Published: 18 August 2016

Written by Carroll Seating

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Categories: Locker Solutions

A school locker room can be one of the most unsettling places in the world. You have to change your clothes, do so in the presence of classmates, and leave all your personal items in an often times unsupervised dungeon. This can be pretty scary. This means it is the school’s responsibility to provide safe and comfortable places to change clothes, and often that means better locker rooms (and thus better school lockers).

The Importance of the Safe Locker Room

Nothing is more satisfying than knowing you are being looked after in a difficult situation. In a school locker room, this means giving your students privacy and the assurance that they are protected in a vulnerable situation. Regardless of the circumstances, needing to change for a gym class or sport is a difficult thing, and the right gym lockers can help give your students the privacy and security they need.

Maximize Your Layout

When re-doing a school locker room, the first thing to consider is the layout. The lockers should be set in a way that promotes privacy while changing, but also an open floor plan to guarantee people never feel vulnerable. An open locker layout and connected changing stalls are a great way to give students privacy while also having the security of being in a group.

Choose the Right Lockers

With children having more expansive equipment in their pockets than ever before, it is imperative to supply secure lockers. Quality athletic lockers are an extremely important aspect in making sure students actively participate in athletic activities. If they are always worried about their things being stolen or messed with, they are going to be less likely to participate.

The right layout is a very tricky beast to wrangle. You have to worry about providing privacy while also eliminating vulnerability. Carroll Seating Company has immense experience walking this thin line and what’s more, we offer some of most premier equipment available. With us as a resource, you’ll get the perfect locker room every single time.