Ask any designer or artist and they will tell you about the power of colour to influence someone’s mood. The psychology of colours has long been recognised as an important influencer for children and there is no better example than the work just completed by Tuff Group at Newhaven Primary School at Phillip Island, Victoria.
As you can see below, the transformation at the school has been amazing. Newhaven Primary came to Tuff Group seeking to revitalise their outdoor space and ensure that their students had both the facilities and the engagement to be active.
The ‘traditional’ bitumen surface was like many found at schools across Australia. It was functional and served its purpose well when it was built, probably 30+ years ago. Since then, times have changed, and technology now allows Tuff Group to make amazing transformations to spaces that need some ‘new life’!
Tuff Group’s Commercial Sales Manager Malcolm Coutts, an acrylics expert, oversaw the project and outlined the detailed process and skills required to get the results the school is now enjoying.
“The original bitumen court at Newhaven was solid, but needed considerable work before we could lay the new acrylic surface”, said Coutts.
“The first task was to grind and pressure wash the entire court, including the surrounding areas to allow for additional elements such as hopscotch”, he said. “This ensured a smooth but uneven surface. To overcome this, we patched the low areas and ground the high areas back further to get the levels within a 3mm tolerance.”
For Tuff Group, this is a standard process, ensuring that the underlying structure is solid before any substrate is laid over the top. In this case, it was for an acrylic surface, but the same principles apply for rubber and artificial turf. Unfortunately in an effort to save costs, clients are often persuaded not to address issues with the base of a surface. This will work for a while, but eventually issues such as this will mean the life span of the surface is reduced. In the majority of cases, this is due to the failure of the base, nit the surface.
NOTE – if you want an assessment on your existing surface and base, just contact Mal and he can provide an obligation-free assessment.
Blue court surface area laid… 
Orange areas are applied over the top 
and the final surface is ready!
When the surface was determined to be at an acceptable stage, we used the Casali Sport acrylic range to build the final surface to the 900m area. As the images show, this was a complex process, requiring considerable skill to ensure the right colours in the correct place and no ‘bleed’ across different elements.
Firstly, Casali Sport Softbase was applied at a rate of 1kg per square metre. This ‘undercoat’ provides the appropriate underlay for the final layer and bonds the surfaces together.
Additional play areas were included to make the best use of the available space of 900m 
Four square and cricket pitch areas compliment the court.
Casali Sport Supersoft was then applied in different colours, again at a rate of 1kg per square metre. The Casali Sport Colour range is comprehensive and we applied the following colours across the surface:
- Court Colour & Basketball Keyways: Casali Sport Blue 303
- 3 Point Inner Area & Centre Circle: Casali Sport Orange 151
- 4 Square Play Area: Casali Sport Blue 303 & White Line Marking
- Cricket Pitch: Casali Sport Green 201 & White Line Marking
- Hopscotch Area: Casali Sport Blue 303, Orange 151, Light Blue 301, Green 202 & White Line Marking
As you can see, the final result is stunning and a timely reminder of what can be done when world class surface technology, Tuff Group expertise and a vision for doing things differently is applied.