Sentinel, the award winning new commercial development by Gordon Murray and Alan Dunlop Architects (gm+ad) in Glasgow's IFSD has greatly impressed the Architectural Society of China.

On 28th October last year, gm+ad took a visiting delegation of distinguished architects from China around Sentinel. The visit was organised by the British Council to enable the establishment of relationships between Scottish architects and the ASC. Rapid economic development in China has stimulated a construction industry boom. This offers great opportunities for Chinese architects in professional practice, and potential for co-operation with architects from all over the world.

The architects, who were mainly involved in the design for public buildings, wanted to learn from the experiences of the UK and establish personal contacts. They are also writing up their experiences in Scotland for The Architectural Journal, available for their 90,000 members across China to read.

Sentinel in particular, so impressed the Chinese visitors that, on their return, the have begun to develop ways to directly collaborate with the designers.

"We could see that they were impressed", says Alan Dunlop," they took lots of photographs and asked many questions. It was a very fruitful visit. It's great when such distinguished international visitors want to visit Glasgow and look round our buildings, it makes it all the more worthwhile"

"The possibility of collaborating on a project in China is very exciting" adds Gordon Murray " it has started the year off in a very positive way and we look now are looking forward to the first discussions and making new contacts "

In 2005 Sentinel won an international award from the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Best Commercial Project category at the Scottish Design Awards. It was also shortlisted for the Andrew Doolan Award as the Best Building in Scotland 2005.