Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences closes building due to fire safety concerns

Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences has closed one of its buildings at campus Woudestein for preventive reasons because its exterior cladding panels may not be fireproof. The school had the building assessed in response to the fire at London’s Grenfell Tower.

The building concerned is thirty years old and situated at the school’s Kralingse Zoom site. Given the provisional test results, the school “is unable to state with certainty that the building component is sufficiently safe for students, staff and other users”.

For this reason, the school’s board decided last night to close the building for the time being. “We realise that this is a decision with extremely far-reaching consequences, but the safety of our staff and students is paramount,” said the Chairman of the school’s Executive Board, Ron Bormans.

 

Closing Polak Building

• Polak building closed immediately
• Polak to remain closed – but EUR will be adding extra study areas
• Polak Building closure creates practical problems on campus
• No acute danger of collapse Polak building

Lectures and exams have been cancelled

The site is used by some 3,500 students of the Rotterdam Business School, including students taking the school’s English-language degrees. Lectures and exams scheduled to take place today and tomorrow have been cancelled, although previously scheduled thesis supervision seminars will go ahead as planned. Starting from Monday, students will be able to attend lectures and seminars elsewhere.

The definitive report is expected to be available on Wednesday and will serve as the basis on which the school will decide whether the building will have to be closed for a longer period of time.

 

Highly flammable

Seventy-one people died in the fire at London’s Grenfell Tower in June 2017. The cheap cladding panels that had been applied during a renovation of the block of flats turned out to be highly flammable, thus allowing the fire to spread very rapidly.

The Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences building is not the first building at campus Woudestein to be closed for preventive reasons. Last October, Erasmus University’s Polak Building was closed due to a risk of collapse.