Livingston, Kirkton Campus Business Park, General

Kirkton Campus

Developed as Scotland's first high-technology science park, in 300 acres of landscaped luxuriance on either side of the Killandean Burn and along the River Almond, contains gleaming, crisp or smooth-edged pavilions. Ethicon, 1978, by Michael Laird & Partners; white linear boxes with a thin strip window for the production building, brown brick and large glazing for the administration block. W L Gore, 1984, was designed by Michael Laird & Partners to encourage interaction between research and development within a cohesive production unit of 250 staff. Triangular in plan, the administration building acts as outer skin for the darker production building which it enfolds. Logic, 1994, Carl Fisher Sibbald, is a clever, square, cream-and-blue pavilion, a corner cut away and replaced by a round entrance and protruding rectangular tower. Extended and redesignated 'Logic House', the complex was fitted out for BskyB, one of the largest employers in West Lothian, as its administration centre. Aptuit was originally developed for Boehringer Mannheim in 1982 by LDC Architects as a single-storey administration building in horizontal brick with rhythmic buttresses, and two-storey office block, the precise brickwork shielding the aluminium-clad manufacturing facility behind. Canon Business Machines, 1989, by The Parr Partnership, opts for a floating pavilion, principal floor cantilevered out beyond the entrance floor, all tied together by an oversailing pitched roof supported on columns. Seagate Micro Electronics, Mackintosh Road, 1986, Livingston Development Corporation Architects, required air cleanliness a thousand times greater than a hospital operating theatre, and so all machinery likely to transmit vibration was on separate foundations. Separate crisp blue cubes, horizontal glazing contrasts with solid service stacks and opaque panels to the production area. Sadly now vacant and derelict, although there are proposals to convert it for distribution use. Bausch and Lomb and Metron, 1992, LDC Architects, post-modern temples to business with massive precast concrete columns.

Taken from "West Lothian: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Stuart Eydmann, Richard Jaques and Charles McKean, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk