Red Road (flats)

Red Road (flats)

The Red Road Flats make up a condemned high-rise housing complex which lies between the districts of Balornock and Barmulloch in the north east of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. The estate originally consisted of eight multi-storey blocks of steel frame construction. Two are "slabs", much wider in cross-section than they are deep. Six are "points" — more of a traditional tower block shape. The slabs have 28 floors, the points 31, and taken together they were designed for a population of 4,700 people. The point blocks are among the tallest buildings in Glasgow at 89 metres (292 ft), second in overall height behind the Gallowgate Twins (109 Bluevale Street/51 Whitevale Street) in Camlachie, but still hold the record for the highest occupied floor level of any building in Glasgow.

Views from the upper floors draw 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.

The first block, the 28-floor slab block, was demolished by controlled explosion on 10 June 2012 The steel structured tower took just six seconds to fall after a series of carefully timed explosions, using 275 kg of explosive, ripped along the building around the sixth to eighth floors. The second block, the 30-floor point block on Birnie Court was demolished on 5 May 2013, at 11:46 a.m., taking about four seconds to fall. As of May 2013, Towers 1, 5 and 6 are undergoing demolition.