Nothing but the Best

Best Building in Scotland

It's official: we have the best building in Scotland
— a building fit for informatics@edinburgh

• Scotland on Sunday
• Times Higher Education
• Scotsman
• Evening News

RIAS Andrew Doolan Award

A spokeswoman for Bennets Associates said judges were impressed by how the Potterrow building encouraged communication between experts from different fields in its communal spaces.

She said: "There are dedicated drop-in spaces, with bean bags and comfy chairs, for staff from other campuses and departments to filter in their research. This is an unprecedented approach in academic architecture that demonstrates a real effort to create spaces that endorse the cross-fertilisation of ideas."

Joint Winners:

Potterrow, Edinburgh by Bennetts Associates
Castlemilk House Stables Block, Glasgow by Elder & Cannon Architects

Special Mention:

Culloden Battlefield Visitor Centre, Inverness by Gareth Hoskins Architects Ltd

Potterrow Development, Bristo Square, University of Edinburgh
Bennetts Associates
This mix of buildings, courtyards and reinstated street lines is designed to form a new hub for the University. Faced in natural stone and quartz-aggregate polished concrete this range of new buildings house the School of Infomatics, the Infomatics Forum (housing over five hundred researchers) and the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences.

The buildings’ facades are aligned along the principal streets to reinstate the area’s historic urban grain. Two interlocking ribbons of accommodation face each other across an open courtyard, orientated to receive sunshine through the seasons.