Projects / 7/25/2024

A highly colourful rectangle to play basketball in the square city

An area of Mannheim along the banks of the river Neckar was redeveloped for both the “Red Bull Half Court 2022” basketball tournament as well as for the residents to come together and play sports.

In Mannheim, a city renowned for its chessboard structure and economic importance, an area along the Neckar river was transformed into a multifunctional sports space. This redevelopment hosted the Red Bull Half Court 2022 international basketball tournament, attracting participants from 29 countries and over 20,000 spectators. Mapei contributed to this renovation with its MAPECOAT TNS FAST system.

Mannheim, the second largest city in the German state of Baden-Wüttemberg, is famous for its checkered layout, made up of 36 squares, as intended by Prince-Elector Carl-Philipp in the XVII century, who built his castle right in the middle of the “chessboard city”. It is located at the confluence between river Neckar and river Rhine and this position, along with the port built here, were determining factors in Mannheim becoming an important trading centre.

The new basketball court in Mannheim after completion of the renovation works that made use of MAPECOAT TNS FAST.

And it was against this backdrop of industrial buildings and river landscape that a large sports area was created, including a basketball court to host the Red Bull Half Court, an international basketball tournament organised by Red Bull, that attracted teams from 29 countries and more than 20,000 spectators.

The renewal of the court involved Mapei as well, continuing a partnership with Red Bull that began in 2021 to help create sports surfaces that are not only high performing, but also aesthetically stunning, so that once tournaments are over, the courts are used by residents to play basketball. An initiative with a high social value and one that demonstrates enormous interest in the territory, with an approach that sees sport not only as an occasion to compete, but also the chance to have fun, to remain fit and healthy and to bring people together.

Mapei provided its MAPECOAT TNS FAST system to turn an asphalt surface into a colourful, high-performance play area.

After Melbourne, Naples, Blegrade and Cairo, MAPECOAT TNS arrives in Mannheim

This wasn’t the first time Red Bull and Mapei have joined forces to create sports surfaces to host international competitions, with these redevelopments becoming, at the same time, an opportunity to regenerate neglected areas in towns and cities.

In 2021, products from the MAPECOAT TNS range had contributed to create a basketball court, and urban work of art, at the Scalo San Lorenzo in Rome ahead of the Red Bull Half Court as well as other courts in Rimini and Bologna.

In October 2022, solutions from the MAPECOAT TNS range had been selected to create colourful and safe sports surfaces for the final of the Red Bull Neymar Jr's Five tournament on a court in Naples. Products from the same range were also used to renovate the surfaces of the basketball courts at Prahran Park in Melbourne, Australia, ahead of the Summer Jam basketball ‘Streetball’ Championships in February 2022.

The Scalo San Lorenzo court in Rome was also completed with MAPECOAT TNS FAST coating.

And from 30 September to 1 October 2022, the final of the Red Bull Half Court was held in Cairo, in the shadow of the pyramids, on surfaces designed by artist Ahmed Nofal (aka Nofal O) and created with materials from the MAPECOAT TNS range. In 2023, the surfaces of the basketball courts in Belgrade's Kalemegdan Park to host the final of the Red Bull Half Court 3x3 were again made with products from the MAPECOAT TNS range. The artist Serge Lowrider also chose them for the creation of the new surfaces of the Red Bull basketball court in Vidy, Lausanne, Switzerland.

In Mannheim, too, a complete system supplied by Mapei was the key to the twin objective of creating a safe, high-performance sports surface for top-level sports competitions and enhancing an urban area where people can play sports, come together and socialise. In short, yet another successful example of “tactical urbanism”.

The final of the Red Bull Half Court 2022 was held in Cairo on surfaces coated with materials from the MAPECOAT TNS range.

Art, sport and community

For the basketball court in Mannheim Mapei supplied the MAPECOAT TNS FAST system, which was used by the artist and graphic designer Florian Budke and a team from City Super Graphics to transform an asphalt surface into a highly colourful court with high performance characteristics which, after the tournament, became a meeting place much loved by the inhabitants of the city.

“Through my work I always try to create a graphic design that has a strong connection with the location it’s in and with the people that will use it”, declared Budke, who managed to complete this work of art over an area of 1000 m² featuring the number 68, a reference to the postcode of Mannheim, the name of the city and of the Water Tower, a historic symbol of Mannheim. White, blue, red and yellow were used to create the surface, a way of uniting the colours traditionally used to identify the city with those of the Red Bull logo.

Budke was able to freely express his creativity thanks to the use of an acrylic resin-based coating system that guarantees durability and slip resistance with a powerful chromatic impact: MAPECOAT TNS FAST, available in 36 standard colours and many custom shades thanks to the ColorMap® automatic colouring system. And that’s not all: MAPECOAT TNS FAST is easy to apply by spray or with a roller and guarantees rapid formation of a surface film once applied. All these characteristics allow for a brightly coloured work of art to be created in just one and a half weeks, ensuring that both professional and amateur players can rely on a perfect bounce of the ball and high resistance to footfall.

The "68 Mannheim" basketball court hosted the Red Bull Half Court 2022, an international basketball tournament that brought participants from 29 countries and over 20,000 spectators to Mannheim.