nora rubber floorcoverings in Hertha BSC's Football Academy
Green grass - blue rubber

You don't have to be a football fan to realize that football is Germany's national game. Innumerable kids and youngsters dream of a professional career. And anyone who's been accepted for the boarding school of Hertha BSC's Football Academy has taken a vital step forward in making this dream come true. But for these young people, life is more than just a field and a ball. They want to feel comfortable outside the stadiums as well. Hertha BSC's boarding school provides the appropriate ambience.

The club has invested around one million euros in building a residential complex on Berlin's Olympic grounds, offering a home to the young men, who are often a long way away from their families. It features nine double rooms, an apartment for the mentor, and several leisure rooms. The client and the architect were keen to create a building that satisfies the wishes of typical young men, while at the same time meeting the cost-efficiency standards of modern-day facility management.

Bright, functional and without any ephemeral gimmicks, the building offers the young players plenty of scope for individuality. And nora rubber floorcoverings make a vital contribution towards this contemporary-style ambience: the clear blue noraplan uni flooring in the rooms offers scope for individualized room design while at the same time anchoring the colour scheme concerned. In the leisure rooms, the noraplan eco flooring, with its two-colour tone-in-tone scattering effect, provides a vivacious look without pushing itself forward.

billiard room JPG, 145 KB, 150 dpi	player's room JPG, 140 KB, 150 dpi

"The nora floorings have proved their worth in recent months", says a gratified Hans-Peter Jakob, the club center's project manager. "The young people feel comfortable, and we're very satisfied - the rubber floorings are very quick and affordable to clean, in the stadium as well, by the way."

The amateur stadium's functional buildings feature the classic product of the world's market leader for rubber floorcoverings, the norament pastille-type flooring. The client opted for a bright blue colour, providing a fresh look for the interior throughout the entrance area and the changing rooms. In these areas, the floorings are required to be particularly hard-wearing: even studded boots grimy with sand leave no lasting traces on the flawlessly unbroken surface of the norament flooring.

"We bear responsibility for the young players", emphasizes Jakob. "The good fire protection properties were a definite factor in the decision to fit both the rooms and the corridors and stairwells with nora floorings." The floorings have been classified as flame-retardant (B1) in conformity with DIN 4102. In the event of a fire, no hydrochloric gases will be released, no hydrochloric acid, no dioxins or furanes.

The recently awarded "Blue Angel" eco-symbol, moreover, explicitly confirms that the minimized emissions from the nora floorings are advantageous for their users. The very good emission characteristics of the noraplan and norament 925 standard floorings, plus the norament 925 stairtreads, are attributable to the carefully selected raw materials employed: top-quality industrial and natural rubbers form the basis, supplemented by minerals obtained from natural deposits plus eco-friendly colour pigments. nora floorings accordingly do not contain any PVC, plasticizers (phthalates) or halogens (such as chlorine).

exterior view of boarding school JPG, 266 KB, 150 dpi	changing room JPG, 119 KB, 150 dpi

Further information for readers:	Further information for editorial staff:
Freudenberg Bausysteme	textivity
D-69465 Weinheim	Annette Röhrs
Tel. +49(0) 62 01 / 80-56 66	Tel. ++49 160 63 61 783
Fax: +49(0) 62 01 / 88-30 19	Fax ++49 62 01 / 25 66 63
E-Mail: nora@freudenberg.de	E-Mail: textivity.roehrs@web.de