Zentia ceilings help give Custom House a new lease of life

Zentia’s acoustic ceilings star in a Glasgow landmark.

Mineral ceiling tiles by leading UK manufacturer Zentia have played an instrumental part in the redevelopment of Glasgow’s historic Grade A listed Custom House.

Some 3,500m² of Zentia’s Ultima+ range features in the public circulation and corridor areas of both the Clayton hotel and the Adagio aparthotel built by main contractor McAleer Rushe as part of the £52 million landmark restoration scheme which opened in November 2022.

It was the first time architects Leach Rhodes Walker had worked with Zentia products.

Steven Allcock, senior project leader at LRW, said: “The scheme was challenging in several ways. Firstly, we had to deal with the existing listed building and incorporate it within the overall scheme. Then there were the acoustics. With it being located next to a railway line, the building had to be designed to be isolated to avoid sound transference throughout the structure. And then there was movement tolerance of +/- 50mm in two directions and +/- 25mm in the opposite two directions.”

Ultima+ tegular-edged mineral ceiling tiles were fixed on a Prelude 24 TLS grid by specialist sub-contractors CCL Interiors. Manufactured with up to 64% recycled content and up to 100% recyclable, the Ultima+ range is available in three core densities that allow specifiers to engineer sound absorption and attenuation for optimum and balanced acoustic performance.

CCL director Ross McGonigle said: “The Ultima+ product provided a smooth, finely-textured, clean white finish, adding brightness to the corridors whilst providing good sound absorption to the public circulation areas.”

Prelude 24 is no longer available for order and has now been replaced by Gridline 24.