Mapei for Red Bull's basketball court in Rome

The area around the San Lorenzo railway station (also called “Scalo San Lorenzo”), in Rome, has been invaded by colour with the image of a giant basketball player painted across the whole of the court. A young street artist called Piskv (real name Francesco Persichella), contributed in brightening up the local community by giving the court a completely new look.

The work was carried out as part of the Red Bull Half Court initiative, an international 3on3 basketball tournament which had originally been scheduled in October 2020, but then put back to October 2021. A refurbishment project with a clear objective: to create a work of art that would be lived and appreciated, first and foremost, by the entire neighbourhood, and then become a point of reference for the numerous lovers of basketball from all over the capital.

“I added the layout of the Colosseum into the shape of the playground because I wanted to give it a really powerful identity”, explained Piskv. “I wanted to trace a basketball player over the Colosseum performing a slam-dunk, the most iconic shot in street basket. Dynamic lines and the vivacity of the colours make the design more powerful, as if it were really slamming the greyness that previously characterised this court”.

To guarantee the durability of the design, and that the colours would remain bright and protected from bad weather and pollution, it was coated using MAPECOAT TNS RACE TRACK, a rapid film-forming, acrylic resin-based coating in water dispersion used to protect the concrete and asphalt surfaces exposed to a high level of footfall.

Thanks to the selected fillers used in its special formulation, MAPECOAT TNS RACE TRACK may be used as a finishing coat on external flooring that needs to have a high level of slip-resistance. MAPECOAT TNS RACE TRACK technology allows highly durable, non-slip surfaces to be created that maintain their surface roughness over the years.

To complete  and fully protect the design – which is around 800 m², one of the largest of its kind in Europe -, the surfaces were then treated with MAPECOAT TNS PROTECTION two-component, transparent protective finish.