Bars and restaurants · Ashton Lane, Glasgow · 2021

Ubiquitous Chip, Glasgow: zoned audio from the courtyard to the rooftop terrace

The Chip has been on Ashton Lane since 1971, and its rooms run from a plant-filled courtyard to an open rooftop terrace. Lairds designed and installed audio through the whole building, indoors and out, that the staff run from their own phones.

Date

2021

The building

The Ubiquitous Chip is one of Glasgow’s best-known restaurants, on the cobbles of Ashton Lane in the West End, and it has been there since 1971. Inside, it is several buildings in one: the courtyard with its planting and glass roof, the dining rooms, the bars, the stair, and the rooftop terrace open to the weather. Each space behaves differently, and each needed its own sound.

The brief was audio through the whole building, indoors and out, that staff could run themselves without training, and that would survive a Glasgow winter on an open terrace. The building’s character had to stay untouched.

What we designed

Sonance Mariner Series loudspeakers, rated for outdoor use, cover the terrace and the open areas. We have the same speakers on coastal sites taking considerably worse punishment than Ashton Lane and they still perform. Inside, speaker placement worked around the planting and the joinery rather than through it, so nothing about the system draws attention to itself.

Yamaha MusicCast WXC-50 and WXA-50 units provide the zone control and the streaming. The courtyard, the dining rooms and the rooftop terrace each run at their own level, and staff control every area from their own phones through the MusicCast app, with whichever streaming service they choose. Quieter through lunch in the dining rooms, louder on the terrace on a Saturday evening.

The Chip is iconic. It deserves technology you do not notice. That is what we built here.

Mark Laird, Founder and Managing Director, Lairds

This is the kind of work we do for bars and restaurants across Glasgow and the west of Scotland.

On site

What went in

• Sonance Mariner Series outdoor loudspeakers
• Yamaha MusicCast WXC-50 and WXA-50 streaming and zone control
• Multi-zone audio across the courtyard, dining rooms and rooftop terrace
• Control from staff phones through the MusicCast app

The Spanish Butcher, Glasgow

Audio, CCTV and network in the week before opening

A restaurant with more than one room?

Courtyards, terraces, bars and dining rooms each need their own sound, and the staff need to run it without thinking about it. Tell us about the building.