September 19 2024

The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland has named five buildings in the running to be named Scotland's Building of the Year.

Ardoch by Moxon Architects, North Gate by Page/Park and the Burrell Collection by John McAslan & Partners will go head-to-head with the Fruitmarket Gallery and the University of Aberdeen Science and Teaching Hub - both by Reiach & Hall, for the 2024 RIAS Andrew Doolan Award.

David Kohn, chair of the 2024 Doolan Award jury, said: “The unanimously chosen final five demonstrate the breadth of contemporary Scottish architecture, from the finely-crafted to the handsomely urbane, from the revitalising of national treasures to state-of-the-art facilities.”

Weighted toward the re-use of existing buildings the shortlist is drawn from the RIAS Awards held earlier in the year and will be announced on 22 November.

The judging panel is rounded off by author and journalist Gabriella Bennett and RIAS president Karen Anderson.

6 Comments

#1 Posted by Fat Bloke on Tour on 19 Sep 2024 at 12:25 PM

Bit of quality but too much padding -- thin year by the looks of the shortlist.

#2 Posted by Diet Specialist on 19 Sep 2024 at 16:49 PM

#1 Perhaps you should consider a thin year for yourself and then you can dissapear and stop being a repetitive keyboard warrior!

#3 Posted by Big Delicious on 19 Sep 2024 at 20:30 PM

We should have to have our usernames linked to our portfolios to comment here. I'd love some context of what masterpieces people here have been making to give them such a high and mighty opinion about everything else

#4 Posted by Lovely on 20 Sep 2024 at 10:50 AM

Yes perhaps we could develop a strict artistic vetting procedure to be allowed to comment, or perhaps not....

#5 Posted by Roddy_ on 20 Sep 2024 at 16:27 PM

I am astonished that R & H's Science and Teaching Hub made it off the long list let alone being a finalist.

I'm fond of much of their work but this is a bit of a lazy riff on their Glasgow College at Cathedral St. Re-use the old details trick - Bob's yer uncle.

I'd really like to see the criteria and reasoning for its inclusion in the final list. Is the plan inventive, is there something I'm missing.

#6 Posted by Mark on 21 Sep 2024 at 15:01 PM

Valid points, #5, but I suspect the judging criteria for SBotY are the same as most architectural awards apply - work that achieves some consensus amongst the judges as being a bit better than the other projects submitted.

You'll find that most if not all awards are judged quite subjectively, very few appear to use a matrix of build cost/sq.m, running cost/sq.m, BREEAM score and so forth.

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