Diverse list of winners in architecture awards – Daily Business

An architecture body has hailed one of the most diverse lists of buildings and other projects to be named the best in Scotland.

Eleven have been named as winners of the annual awards by the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS).

The list includes a women’s prison, two restored castles, a road bridge, a school and a whisky distillery.

HM Prison and Young Offender Institution Stirling, which houses female prisoners, was described as “quietly radical” by judges who praised it as “deeply humane”.

The £85.7 million complex, designed by Holmes Miller, does not have bars on its windows or cells and was said to mark a “fundamental rethinking of custodial environments in Scotland”.

It opened in 2023, two years later than originally planned, and has specialist mother-and-baby units as well as dedicated mental health spaces.

The reconstruction of the 16th century Fairburn Tower at Muir of Ord to the west of Inverness was undertaken by Simpson & Brown Architects for The Landmark Trust.

Another A-listed castle on the list, Aldourie near Loch Ness, is owned by Anders Holch Povlsen, the Danish billionaire businessman and its restoration was overseen by Ptolemy Dean Architects.

Judges were impressed by the revival of the long-closed Rosebank Distillery, owned by Ian Macleod Distillers, by MLA using bricks from the original building to create a warehouse and retain part of a 103-year-old mill.

Other winners are the transformation of Union Terrace Gardens in Aberdeen; The Nucleus Building at University of Edinburgh; the Gairnshiel Jubilee Bridge in Aberdeenshire; Caoghan na Creige, a home on Isle of Harris by Izat Arundell; Ellengowan Regeneration, Dundee by Collective Architecture which replaces 124 deteriorating flats with 130 affordable homes; Kinloch Lodge, Lairg by GRAS, an example of a ‘light-touch’ conservation project; and Riverside Primary School in Perth, by Architype, the first Passivhaus-certified school in Scotland.

The 11 winners of the 2025 RIAS Awards will now become the ‘longlist’ for the RIAS Andrew Doolan Best Building in Scotland Award. Recipients of the 2025 RIAS Awards are also eligible for the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) National Awards.