Nadal Academy: Wall-to-Wall Dekton®

MANACOR, Spain – When tennis superstar Rafa Nadal opened his new tennis-training facility here late last fall, he offered plenty of nets, rackets … and Dekton®.

Click photo for galleryUsing the sintered surface from Costentino Group is no surprise, given that the company sponsors Nadal – and the state-of-the-art Rafa Nadal Academy – and offers the clay-court ace as the official brand ambassador of Dekton.

However, the facility on Nadal’s native island of Mallorca shows more than just a passing connection with a product, with more than 430,000 square feet of the material gracing nearly everything but the playing/training courts.

The campus – officially the Rafa Nadal Academy by Movistar (Spain’s largest cell-network operator) – includes 26 tennis courts, three swimming pools, student housing, training school/clinic, hotel and bar, all surrounded by green space in Nadal’s hometown. Joined by world tennis officials and fellow top-line player Roger Federer, Nadal officially opened the facility on Oct. 19.

David Iglesias, one of Spain’s leading architects, worked closely with Nadal and his family on the innovative, futuristic design.

“The premise of this project was to build a training academy and at the same time create a building for use by the people of the town and for the whole of Mallorca,” Iglesias said. “Therefore, the end result had to be made up of a very defined area, specifically for children, and another, completely the contrary, where people could circulate freely.

“Consequently, the two buildings that make up the final project are relatively multi-functional, each one with its own features and level of safety. They are perfectly interconnected, in such a way as to meet with the objective.”

Dekton is physically the face of the academy, with 1.2cm-thick pieces of the material’s Strato color used for cladding pillars and forgings, and 4,790 ft² of the sintered surface covering for a ventilated façade in a custom blue color created specifically for the facility.

The cladding offers a showpiece for Dekton to advertise the material’s high resistance to UV and freeze/thaw, as well as color stability. Cosentino also integrated its use with the CAT 1 fastening system by Wandegar of Alcora, Spain.

Dekton also went horizontal for exterior use throughout the academy, with various colors used in decking around pools and other facilities.

The sintered surface also found its way onto interior walls and floors, as well as one-piece stairs throughout the complex. Dekton’s first recycled-based surface, Trilium, also provides interesting contemporary styling with its oxidized-metal look lining 13,767 ft² of walls and floors of the academy’s spa, among other areas.

Not all surfaces get the Dekton treatment, but the facility also shows allegiance to Cosentino’s sponsorship with more than 100 shower trays and wash basins made with Silestone® Blanco Zeus Suede shade, along with various other shades in other areas.

“Collaborating with Rafa Nadal is a source of great pride for us all,” said Santiago Alfonso, Cosentino’s director of marketing and communications. “Nadal is so much more than an exceptional athlete. His desire to achieve, his strength and ability to lead are some of the values that have made him a global celebrity, recognised and admired everywhere.

“For Cosentino, where we have always committed ourselves to continually improve, innovate and search for that leadership to succeed, this partnership represents great satisfaction for all our employees, partners and customers worldwide.”

“The fact that this union begins precisely with the sponsorship of the Academy perfectly reflects our common understanding of all those values,” Alfonso added. “This really can be called a Social Responsibility initiative, as it focuses on youngsters in our society. For us it is an honour to work together on this educational project, and for our best products to be present in all its facilities and spaces.”

The collaboration with Nadal is part of Cosentino’s relationships with international sports stars hailing from Spain. For four years, the company held a personal sponsorship with Fernando Alonso, the Formula 1 auto-racing champion, and it also had a multi-year sponsorship agreement for Dekton with Jorge Lorenzo, a three-time world champion in MotoGP motorcycle racing.