Red Road (flats)

Red Road Flats
The Eight Red Road Towerblocks in March 2009.
General information
Status	Demolished June 2012 May 2013 (Birnie Court) October 2015
Type	Residential
Architectural style	Brutalist / Modernist
Location	Balornock, Glasgow, Scotland
Address	Tower 1: 10 Red Road Court Tower 2: 33 Petershill Drive Tower 3: 63 Petershill Drive Tower 4: 93 Petershill Drive Tower 5: 123 Petershill Drive Tower 6: 10–30 Petershill Court Tower 7: 153–213 Petershill Drive Tower 8: 21 Birnie Court
Coordinates	55°52′48.54″N 4°12′29.57″W / 55.8801500°N 4.2082139°W / 55.8801500; -4.2082139 (Red Road Flats)Coordinates: 55°52′48.54″N 4°12′29.57″W / 55.8801500°N 4.2082139°W / 55.8801500; -4.2082139 (Red Road Flats)
Construction started	1964
Completed	1968
Opening	1971
Cost	£6million (estimated)
Owner	Glasgow Housing Association
Height
Roof	Point Blocks=89.0 metres (292 ft) Slab Blocks=79.0 metres (259 ft)
Top floor	31
Technical details
Structural system	Steel frame
Floor count	Point Blocks = 31 Slab Blocks = 28
Lifts/elevators	Point Blocks = 2 Slab Blocks = 6
Design and construction
Architect	Sam Bunton & Associates
Developer	Glasgow Corporation
Structural engineer	W A Fairhurst & Partners

Demolished

June 2012

May 2013 (Birnie Court)

The Red Road Flats were a mid-twentieth-century high-rise housing complex located between the districts of Balornock and Barmulloch in the northeast of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. The estate originally consisted of eight multi-storey blocks of steel frame construction. Two were "slabs", much wider in cross-section than they are deep. Six were "points" , more of a traditional tower block shape. The slabs had 28 floors (26 occupiable + 2 mechanical), the point blocks 31 (30 occupiable + 1 mechanical), and taken together, they were designed for a population of 4,700 people. The point blocks were among the tallest buildings in Glasgow at 89 metres (292 ft), second in overall height behind the former Bluevale and Whitevale Towers in Camlachie. The 30th floor of the point blocks were the highest inhabitable floor level of any building in Glasgow.

Views from the upper floors drew the eye along the Campsie Fells to Ben Lomond and the Arrochar Alps, then west past the Erskine Bridge and out to Goat Fell on the Isle of Arran continuing south over Glasgow and East towards Edinburgh. On a clear day, the buildings were visible on the Glasgow skyline from up to 10 miles (16 kilometres) away. The 31st floor of the point blocks and the corresponding 28th floor of the slabs were reserved as a communal drying area.

Among the best-known of Glasgow's highrise housing developments of the 1960s, the buildings were formally condemned in July 2008 after a long period of decline, with their phased demolition taking place in three stages between 2010 and 2015.

After the publication of the Bruce Report in 1946, Glasgow Corporation identified Comprehensive Development Areas (CDAs), which were largely inner-urban districts (such as the Gorbals, Anderston and Townhead), with a high proportion of overcrowded slum housing. These areas would see the mass demolition of overcrowded and insanitary tenement slum housing, and their replacement with lower density housing schemes to create space for modern developments. The dispersed population would be relocated to new estates built on green belt land on the outer periphery of the city's metropolitan area, with others moved out to the New Towns of Cumbernauld and East Kilbride. These initiatives began to be implemented in the late 1950s.