Responsible modernity serving the early years cohort
The mayor's office in Belley, France, wanted to build a "state-of-the-art" early years centre to cater for the children in their community.
The early years centre in Belley is now the largest in the department of Ain.
A spacious, fit-for-purpose structure
Established in spacious premises of 1,600m2, with an outdoor space of 7,200m2, the Belley early years centre is now the largest in the Ain department. It offers a warm and homely environment. The building brings together a multiple reception area, a kindergarten and a centre for child minders. This specific arrangement for the early years cohort ensures that all activities are offered in complete safety.
Energy saving, easy to use and simple to maintain
The project subscribes to the philosophy of energy saving and comfort of use as prescribed by Laurent Jacquier, co-director and engineer at the energy consulting firm GENIE-TECHS, leading the project:
"From the pre-project brief we worked with the client and technical services and the future users to clarify the operational specification. For technical services, it was essential to ensure easy servicing and maintenance, while for users, product ergonomics were paramount. Soft-touch operation on every mixer and tap was very important, especially for the taps used by the children.".
Environmental considerations also featured fairly prominently in the brief, as Mr. Jacquier explains: "In addition to all these criteria, efficient resource management was also added specifically to the operational plan.".
DELABIE, the partner of choice
It's only natural that DELABIE's products were specified for the washroom fittings, as Laurent Jacquier points out:
"We turned to DELABIE's products, which we are very familiar with, and which meet all the technical and qualitative criteria that we require from such products: product technicality, design, product reliability and ease of maintenance. Our design office is very sensitive to all of these criteria, including design!"
Hygiene and water savings, strike twice with DELABIE's products
Hygiene is essential in this type of building dedicated to children; touch-free taps were chosen, requiring no effort on the part of the user.
"Naturally we focussed on electronic taps and instantaneous, foot-operated valves which operate the taps in the changing rooms. Neither of these two products requires physical contact which reduces the risk of spreading germs by hand" states the senior consulting engineer on the project.
These DELABIE taps also make it possible to maximise the water savings while preserving user comfort.
"Water consumption for these taps is optimised, generating significant water savings. Water consumption is really in line with the real needs of the user".
Safety remains paramount in the choice of products
Hot water is the third highest cause of burns in children under 5 years old. Also, the anti-scalding safety of the taps used for early years children was a major factor when specifying this project.
"We installed SECURITHERM Securitouch thermostatic shower mixers for the baby showers and PREMIX COMPACT thermostatic mixing valves upstream of each water control." states Mr. Jacquier.
Direct flush WC equipment
For this project the design office specified TEMPOFLUX 2 direct flush WC valves, mainly to meet the maintenance challenges related to cisterns.
"Since there is no cistern, there is no need for technical services to keep spare parts. Direct flush is also less sensitive to scale. We are based in an area with heavily charged water" emphasizes Mr. Jacquier. He continues: "this product's smooth operation reassured us when specifying it for this type of application.".
DELABIE products installed
Non-exhaustive list.
TEMPOMIX 3 time flow mixer - reference 794000
TEMPOMIX 3 wall-mounted time flow mixer - reference 794050
TEMPOMATIC MIX 4 electronic mixer - reference 49000615
TEMPOMATIC MIX PRO electronic mixer - reference 49525715
SXS stainless steel hand washbasin - reference 182320
SECURITHERM thermostatic time flow shower panel - reference 792305
SECURITHERM Securitouch thermostatic shower kit - reference H9741KIT
TEMPOFLUX 2 direct flush WC valve - reference 762902
TEMPOFIX 3 self-supporting frame system with TEMPOFLUX 2 time flow WC valve - reference 578305DE-578222
