Centrelink 5, Boiler House, Calderhead Road, Shotts

Centrelink 5, Boiler House, Calderhead Road, Shotts

A Grade listed building designed by Ahrends, Burton & Koralek between 1975 and 1983, with structural and building services engineering by Ove Arup & Partners and landscape design by Landesign Group.

This extensive single-storey building incorporates an earlier 20th-century textile mill and formerly housed diesel engine manufacturing. The site slopes from north to south, with the building cut into the existing landscape to create a new flat floor area. Construction consists of steel framing, corrugated metal cladding, reinforced concrete, and tubular steel, with extensive roof glazing throughout.

The building spans approximately 50,000 square metres and is organised in five main units along an east-west axis to accommodate the specific production flow for manufacturing HP diesel engines. This sequence runs from the receiving and testing department to the east, through machining, storage, and assembly areas, to testing and shipping facilities to the west. The roof structure is designed for lifting heavy loads, with secondary beams forming a level plane below triangular primary trusses and tubular steelwork. These trusses serve dual purposes as routes for service distribution and incorporate zones of roof glazing.

The southern elevation comprises four wide, advanced and receding single-storey blocks divided by three long raised linear plant rooms with large circular vents at regular intervals. A saw-toothed profiled former textile manufacturing block to the far left has been re-clad in corrugated metal and re-glazed for offices, assembly, testing and shipping. A plain rectangular corrugated metal block with four low-pitched roofs (former stores) stands to the right, with a later service entrance extension. Two steel-framed blocks to the far right feature corrugated metal V-plan glazing with tubular steel trusses configured in a V-shaped profile, originally planned as machining and receiving areas. A corrugated metal hood frames a double-height glazed main entrance.

The eastern elevation has large service doors to a slightly splayed elevation, with six slightly overhanging triangular canopies at roof level supported by upright tubular steel trusses.

The northern elevation comprises four wide, stepped single-storey blocks divided by three raised covered corrugated metal and concrete walkways at first-floor level, leading to a raised rear car park. These walkways feature circular louvered openings. Three steel-framed blocks to the far left have corrugated metal V-plan glazing with tubular steel trusses configured in a V-shaped profile. Painted metal spiral fire escape stairs are positioned to the south.

The western elevation consists of a long plain corrugated metal section to the right and a short recessed section to the far left (former shipping area).

Three covered corrugated metal and concrete walkways connect to the raised rear car park to the north.

The L-plan former boiler house to the northwest features a large yellow-painted crushed-coal silo and triple chimney stack. It comprises a six-bay reconfigured structure with corrugated metal canopied units. Red-painted tubular and lattice two-panel metal gates with a circular metal motif at their centre mark the west and east entrances.

The interior features an upper-level amenity deck at the centre of the plan, including kitchen, canteen and medical centre overlooking the assembly area, with offices to the southwest. A double-height reception area has square-plan concrete pillars and large tubular overhead ducts. Distinctive reinforced concrete V-shaped beams and columns are present in the former canteen area. Reconfigured and extended sealed diesel engine testing cells are located to the northwest. Various exposed services throughout the building are painted in primary colours—yellow, green, or purple—creating a distinctive colour-coding system for individual units to interior and exterior spaces.

The entire complex is set within a designed landscape, sunken in part at factory level. Excavated material forms pyramidal-shaped hills creating screening and a shelter belt at the eastern perimeter.