Rising to the top step by step. And this with a special, powerful red at your feet, a stylish and confident road that escorts both staff and customers into the imposing building of the renowned Macquarie Bank in London. The impressive stairway in the British branch of the Australian bank is a special design made in Germany, developed and delivered by nora systems GmbH. All over the world, this Weinheim company is famous for its high quality rubber floor coverings whose properties make it the ideal choice specifically for highly frequented buildings such as educational facilities, hospitals, museums, industrial companies, and, of course, banks.
High quality single piece stairtread
So that stairways too can be integrated harmoniously in architecture and design concepts, the Weinheim company provides an extensive range of rubber floorings for stairways, for both new buildings and renovations. The most popular variant is the single piece norament stairtread with integrated preformed stair nosing, riser, and tread. It is suitable for straight stairs with right-angled edging. These stairways know no limits when it comes to colour and design. The pastille flooring, available in as many as twelve different colours in the standard range, can then be colour configured just as the customer wishes. Other stairway solutions as equally popular as the cult pastille design: the granulate designs norament satura tone-in-tone and the high contrast norament grano. Both of these variants present a tread with hammerblow surface.
Growing demand for signal and safety stripes
One special feature contributing to stairway safety constitutes signal and safety stripes. “Ultra grip safety stripes increase greatly the slip resistance of steps. In addition, we recommend coloured signal strips that we can integrate in the stair nosing. These then enhance the visibility of the first and last step, which is so important at the landings,” said Jürgen Karger, Product Manager at nora systems. According to Karger, a number of countries even stipulate safety and signal stripes, whereas in Germany they are only optional. This option, though, is enjoying ever greater demand.
Besides its single piece stairtread, nora systems also offers individual solutions, e.g. combinations of floor coverings with stair nosings and stair angles. These are used, for instance, for the made to measure integration of a step in a spiral staircase. The range of high quality accessories also includes edges and corners and can be combined easily with other types of floor coverings.
Harmonious look of floor and stairway
Stairway solutions also take the form of the sister product noraplan, which unlike the norament tile can be manufactured and installed as sheetware. This is extremely hard wearing, slip resistant, foot warm, permanently resilient, and easy to clean. And, like norament, it comes with a health aspect. Rubber floor coverings and hence the materials used in the stairway are ecologically safe. When deliberating on an inspiring, healthy, and long lasting solution for their building, the decision makers at Ulm University of Communication and Design HfK+G opted for noraplan sentica. Today, a powerful green escorts the students into an appealing environment, including not only the rubber floor covering, but also the harmoniously integrated steps in the identical colour. Covering 2200 square metres, the floor and stairway present a unified look, affording an essential contribution to the modern design of the interior.
Very fast and low cost installation
By opting for a stairtread, you are guaranteed the optimal combination of handling and economy. The stairtread is installed quickly, cleanly, and professionally as a single piece. All widths are possible, without visible seams or joint sealing. One of the many numerous advantages: the time consuming installation of stair nosings and separately trimmed coverings for single piece risers and treads are now a thing of the past. The subsurface can be virtually any material: wood, stone, screed, metal, or any of many other solid surfaces. Low cost and environmentally compatible in equal measure, the adhesive innovation nora Stepfix 240 proves ideal for the installation. With this double sided adhesive tape, installations, whether in new or renovated buildings, are up to five times faster than with conventional adhesive variants.
