Bristol Airport £24 million expansion showcases Hunter Douglas ceiling

Hunter Douglas is flying high after playing its part in a £24 million expansion at Bristol Airport.

The international leader in architectural products worked as part of a multi-disciplinary team to complete the new West Terminal – a state-of-the-art, 9000m2 building, featuring a larger baggage reclaims area, HM Customs, enhanced security area, arrivals area, and meet and greet areas. The company is renowned for its exacting, high quality work on complex building projects around the world and it has undertaken numerous bespoke ceiling projects at international airports, including Beijing International Airport, China, and Logan Airport, Boston, USA.

For this scheme, Hunter Douglas designed and manufactured the ceiling for the airport’s main security search and baggage reclaim areas.

The design brief was for a linear wood grill ceiling and Hunter Douglas supplied 1000m2 Ayous solid wood grill, comprising panels that are 20mm wide by 80mm deep slats with 150mm gap. The wood grill panels were stained to match the floor and were selected to match the system installed at Schiphol Airport.

Hunter Douglas also supplied 400m2 30BXD Luxalon plain white multi-panels, which were installed on the ground floor in the domestic arrivals and domestic baggage reclaim areas. Zoe Trevett, of Harmsen Tilney Shane, who led the interior design work, said: “The primary specification was for the linear wood grill product, which can be found in the main security search area.

“This product worked well to bring warmth and a sense of calm to what is otherwise a stressful process. An airport security environment usually consists of hard, cold finishes, so the bespoke stained Ayous slats were an important addition to the area. The system provided the right sense of scale and drama within a very large volume of space.

“Maintenance access into the open ceiling above has also been improved, although some lessons learned resulted in an improved specification for further areas in the terminal.”

David Harris, general manager of Hunter Douglas Architectural, said the Bristol Airport project was the latest to showcase the company’s expertise in enhancing large, public buildings.

“We are renowned for manufacturing and supplying innovative ceilings in all kinds of settings and this latest scheme in Bristol demonstrates how we accommodate the specific needs of our clients to create the look they are aiming for,” he said.