University of South Wales
Pontypridd

This sports flooring project for Treforest Campus at the University of South Wales was installed in February 2022.

The 880m² sports hall at the University was intended for playing basketball, badminton netball and other sports. The floor therefore had to be designed for multi-sports use, and a combined elastic C4 sports floor was specified.

This offers the highest performance for shock absorption and gives athletes the maximum protection against injuries.

InstaFloor worked in partnership with Gerflor UK and Artisan Flooring, Swansea to deliver the complete project. Gerflor liaised with the client and architect to confirm the correct specification. The playing surface was Gerflor’s Taraflex sports vinyl.

InstaFloor’s rubber cradle sprung sports floor was able to level the subfloor accurately, creating a perfect playing surface. The dry system also avoided the use of levelling compounds or wet screeds: installation times were faster, and no moisture was introduced into the process.

A core consideration for this project was high loading from retractable seating. When deployed, the seating could potentially cause issues, since the sports floor must be able to deflect and move to offer a true sprung performance.

This challenge was met by designing and building a special level: this allowed the sports floor to maintain the sprung performance required for professional sports, with the ability to support the extra loads when required.

Essentially, the floor is now designed to withstand these loads over time, preventing damage and ensuring the sprung performance is maintained during its lifetime of use.