Willesden City Academy

Boflex was installed at the prestigious new Capital City Academy in Willesden, the high profile specialist sports school designed by Foster and Partners and officially opened by Tony Blair.

A total of 1300 m2 of Boflex Stadium Oak was fitted at the school in the sports hall, theatre and dance studio. Its high load bearing capability meant that no further reinforcement was required to cope with the bleacher retractable seating system installed in the theatre. The architects were also confident that the stability of the advanced joining system would not be compromised by the underfloor heating in the sports hall. Boflex floors are manufactured by BOEN specifically for use as sports surfaces and are installed in facilities across the world. The engineered 4-layer structure, which is double tongue and grooved on all four edges, delivers supreme dimensional stability.

According to Foster and Partners architect Phil Smith, it was the ‘simplicity’ of the system and how the floor is engineered to “pull together and perform as a complete surface” which appealed to the school’s Principal who ultimately specified it over a traditional hardwood installation.

All BOEN’s engineered sports floors perform without the development of unsightly gaps, which often occur in solid wood systems. This is due to the combination of their engineered structure and BOEN’s unique process where the tongue and groove joints are milled after lacquering, rather than before, to produce a truly tight, barely visible joint.

Boflex carries the unique combination of a built-in shock absorption material and a stable construction that can withstand almost unlimited loads. This makes the floor system ideal for venues with multi-purpose usage (schools for examples) and large arenas. The uniform performance suits children as well as adults, with good bounce and friction. Even after twenty years, Boflex performs as day one.

Tests conducted by SINTEF (formerly The Norwegian Building Research Institute) shows that Boflex surpasses all its rivals and performs exceptionally well when being used by children and adults protecting body joints from shocks.

Boflex offers flexibility to accommodate your needs. Due to its extremely low building height, it is well suited for renovation purposes. The floor system is suitable with underfloor heating, for rolling loads and allows both hardwood and elastic surfaces (Boflex Champion).

Tests show that the system can withstand an almost unlimited load, due to the special built-in foam under-structure that can never be compresses more than 50% making the system suitable for tackling the heavy weight grandstands.

Boflex must be installed on an even and selfsupporting sub-floor, or on top of an existing floor.

The installation was carried out by CFA Member, Herefordshire based Winstone Flooring Limited, which specialises in sports floor projects.