School COLA | Covered
Outdoor Learning Areas

At Greenline, we design Covered Outdoor Learning Areas (COLAs) to create enjoyable, functional spaces for students and teachers. Enhance learning with outdoor classrooms that inspire and refresh young minds.

This means creating a shade structure that provides an enjoyable and productive learning environment for students and teachers alike.

In a school, the best environment to encourage new growth in our country’s students is one that they enjoy spending time in.

While classrooms are the pinnacle of an educational environment, a change in scenery can invigorate young minds and make the school day all the more pleasant.

Bring the classroom outdoors with the coverage provided by school COLAs.

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COLA: Covered Outdoor Learning Area

Think of your shade structure as a canopy. In a forest, the canopy maintains optimum conditions for encouraging new growth. We now know that our learning environments are critical to achieving good learning outcomes, so give students an environment they can thrive in with a school COLA.

Greenline’s school COLAs are large-span steel structures that transform your outdoor space and give you all-weather use of your sports courts, eating areas, and more. With zero obstructions by weather conditions to learning, play, or lunchtime, students can always make the most of outdoor learning areas.

What is a COLA?

A Covered Outdoor Learning Area (COLA) is a shaded outdoor space designed to support classroom learning, outdoor activities, and play. These steel structures are built to withstand harsh weather, making them a practical addition to any school environment. COLAs are versatile and suit different needs, such as assembly areas, playground covers, or outdoor sports courts.

COLAs often feature weather protection, soundproofing, and bird-proofing to ensure they remain functional and clean. They’re also designed to enhance natural lighting while providing shade, creating a balanced and inviting learning environment. The term ‘covered outdoor learning area’ gained prominence in Australia following a large government investment in 2007, making COLAs synonymous with high-quality, steel shade structures for schools.

Common Applications

COLAs are most commonly used in the following areas:

Sports Courts: Provide long term all-weather access to multipurpose courts for netball, volleyball, and other activities.
Outdoor Dining Areas: Create shaded spaces for students to eat and socialise.
Playgrounds: While less common, they do create safe play areas protected from sun and rain.
Assembly Spaces: Facilitate gatherings with soundproofing and acoustic features.
Walkways and Bus Stops: Smaller versions in these spaces offer cover for added convenience and safety.

These large steel structures are designed to fit seamlessly into your school’s environment while meeting high quality standards and safety requirements.

See our COLA projects

With over 20 years of shade solution experience, Greenline has provided multiple schools with a COLA customised to their learning environments and students’ needs. All of our shade structures are made to withstand harsh weather conditions while also being aesthetically pleasing. So there is no need to compromise on design when needing to protect a play area or learning environment.

Read on to discover how Greenline has raised the value and learning environments of multiple schools across Australia.

Blackburn High School 3D Video

Construction started in August 2018 and was completed early 2019.
Covering 2 full size basketball courts and 4 volleyball courts and includes concrete tiered seating and integrated sports equipment.
The structure measures at 38m x 61m.

Click here to view our video

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Features of a commercial COLA structure

Adding some (or all!) of the following features to a traditional COLA can transform your space into a functional and practical multipurpose facility.

COLA sizes and styles

Find a shade solution for your school’s outdoor learning areas no matter the scale of the project with Greenline. Our school COLA structures come in various materials, shapes, styles, and sizes to suit the needs and image of any school environment.

SIZES

COLAs typically span anywhere from 10m wide to 50m wide, however, due to the way they are constructed they are almost limitless in size.

Along with the area they can cover, the ability to construct them with a curved or gable roof makes them a great option where sports-grade clearance heights are required.

Traditionally these structures are designed as a rectangle as this is the most efficient layout however, as all Greenline structures are designed in-house, they can be customised to best fit your space.

STYLES

Gable – this is the classic COLA shape

Curved – this shape is sometimes referred to as a barrel vault and is a modern take on the more traditional gable style.

Skillion – a flat or angled roof steel structure

Choosing materials for your structure

Aesthetically, one of the main aspects of your COLA will be the roof cladding (external layer). This is typically constructed from Colorbond which comes in a range of colours. If you choose to add skirts (see more on this under ‘endless possibilities’ on this page) to your structure, these are usually constructed from the same Colorbond cladding as the roof.

The gutters and downpipes can either be matched to the roof colour, or you can choose a contrasting colour to create a two-tone feature. The other main aspect of your COLA is the steel work.

There are two main finishes for columns:

Galvanised – a highly durable raw silver/grey finish
Colorbond – also very durable and comes in a range of colours.

Skylights and Infills

Depending on the range of skylights you choose from, these can come in clear, white, or blue. The same material can also be used to create end infills.

Choosing to add Skylights and Infills can give you even greater flexibility in how you use the space – for more details see the ‘Endless Possibilities’ section further down on this page.

FLEXIBILITY IN SCHEDULING LESSONS AND SPORTING EVENTS IN THE AREA

Remove the stress and frustration of having to reschedule sport lessons and activities at the last minute due to rain or other inclement weather. By covering your sports courts and activity areas you gain all year-round access to your facilities, whatever the weather!

IMPROVE THE LONGEVITY OF YOUR ARTIFICIAL TURF

Artificial turf can be up to 20 degrees hotter than the outside temperature. Over time this can lead to the surface breaking down from UV overexposure. Covering this turf not only makes it last longer, but also makes the space much safer for staff and students using the area at the height of summer.

COMMUNITY USE

Covering your existing facilities can make it an attractive area for community use, outside of school hours.

PROTECTS YOUR STAFF AND STUDENTS FROM THE HARSH UV RAYS

A well-designed, covered outdoor learning area will not only protect staff and students from the sun’s rays or keep the rain off, this shade option offers the opportunity to take your classroom outside.

Research shows that outdoor learning encourages increased interaction and engagement by both students and teachers.

BIRD PROOFING

Bird proofing is a simple and effective way to reduce the amount of maintenance and cleaning needed for your structure, as well as making it a healthier and safer environment for students and teachers alike. It is also required to meet some state government compliance regulations.

As we all know, prevention is much better than cure! Unlike bird spikes or bird netting, your COLA can be designed so that it does not contain any roosting locations at all, completely eliminating the issue as well as any ongoing maintenance needs that go along with netting or spikes.

Features of a commercial COLA structure

Adding some (or all!) of the following features to a traditional COLA can transform your space into a functional and practical multipurpose facility.

SKYLIGHTS AND END INFILLS

Opting for Skylights and End Infills is an easy way to get even more use from your space. The added access to natural light will mean you can use this space on even the most cloudy, overcast days. Natural light gives students the feel of being outdoors without exposing them to unhealthy amounts of UVR.

ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING

Adding artificial lighting to your structure gives you the option and ability to host evening games and events in the great outdoors. This is especially important if you plan on having out of hours community usage.

PA SYSTEM

Be heard above the noise! Incorporating a PA System into your structure is an excellent way to make it more functional for both games, assemblies, and events.

POST PADS

Improve the safety of your space with post pads on the columns to minimise the risk of students colliding with metal surfaces. Don’t fill out more paperwork than you have to!

SOUND PROOFING/ABSORBING

Steel can produce a lot of echoes and sound reverberance when in use. To minimise this, sound proofing can be installed in the Synthetic grass court surfacing is also effective for further absorbing noise

SIDE SKIRTS

Side Skirts refers to adding sides that come vertically down (typically about a metre) along the edges of the structure. They minimise the amount of driving rain that can enter the space and maximise the duration of shade coverage throughout the day.

SPORTING EQUIPMENT/ACCESSORIES

Sporting equipment like basketball and netball hoops can be integrated into your structure to eliminate unnecessary posts, making the space safer and more versatile. For multi-purpose spaces, hoops can be retractable to allow full use of the space when the hoops are not in use.

MATERIALS

Materials will be primarily waterproof, membrane or steel. The term COLA has become synonymous with metal/steel roof structures, however for the creation of your Covered Outdoor Learning Area, structure type, and material options are entirely in your hands.

Wondering How Much COLAs Cost?

Wondering what it would cost to have a Covered Outdoor Learning Area built at your school or organisation? Try out our cost estimator tool – you’ll just need to know a few details like rough dimensions of the space and how accessible the area is. If you don’t know the size of your area, give us a call and we will map it out for you on Nearmap (an accurate and up to date aerial mapping service).

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School COLA | Covered
Outdoor Learning Areas