Multi-purpose hall in Gissi, Italy, equipped with Polytan Indoor GYM Point and a Polytan LigaGrass Pro artificial turf pitch
Serving sport and culture
Gissi lies in the hilly landscape of the Provincia di Chieti on the edge of the Apennine Mountains. With just over two and a half thousand inhabitants, the Italian municipality is quite manageable and also very old – even the Romans settled in the area, which is shaped by vineyards and fruit and olive trees. Wine lovers particularly appreciate the area since the grapes for the popular Montepulciano d’Abruzzo grow here.
But like almost all small towns in central and southern Italy, it is not easy to get residents to stay. To make a change here, the municipality decided to build a multi-purpose hall primarily used as a playground and gymnasium, as well as renovating the outdoor areas and creating a football pitch made of artificial turf.
This building project was also urgently needed because there had previously been no gymnasium at all, meaning that the sports facilities were not sufficient either for primary or secondary school pupils living in the village, nor for the public and particularly not for the local volleyball team. It is part of the ASD Sportland association, which was founded in 2010 with the aim of providing the residents of Gissi with more sporting and social opportunities – including volleyball, basketball, skating, and summer activities for children and young people. To make way for the new multi-purpose hall, an older part of the middle school building was demolished and replaced by the new sports hall.
We contributed to the redesign by supplying a two-tone Polytan Indoor GYM Point surface in blue and ochre. This point-elastic indoor sports floor is flexible and therefore shock-absorbent, which is especially important for children’s and school sports, but also for amateur and recreational sports. In front of the hall, we have also installed a LigaGrass Pro artificial turf pitch, which is suitable for multi-functional use. The LigaGrass Pro filament with its triangular cross-section ensures even greater fibre stability and gives the turf more volume and structure. As a crimped Polytan artificial turf system, the LigaGrass Pro also features BiColour colouring.
Gissi’s new multi-purpose hall, which was officially opened on 14 September 2020, is intended to be a place for sporting activities, but also to serve as a meeting place and space for cultural, educational and leisure activities that promote integration and social cohesion in the community. It was built with the help of funding from the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) and the Italian Sports Credit Institute. It is also handicapped-accessible in line with CONI standards for sports facilities, and features an entrance ramp at the main door, for example.
