The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) today announced the winner of the 2006 Andrew Doolan Best Building in Scotland. Designed by Page\Park Architects of Glasgow, Maggie's Cancer Care Centre in Inverness was selected from a shortlist of ten projects to receive the accolade of best building in Scotland this year. The prize of £25K is the biggest architecture prize in Europe and is awarded annually in memory of Scottish architect Andrew Doolan, who founded the award in 2002.

At a ceremony in The Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh on 16 November, Professor Simon Unwin of Dundee University School of Architecture, speaking on behalf of the jury, said the architects had tackled a delicate brief with disarming wit and comforting good humour.

"With a complex tangle of intertwining curves and using a palette of warm and pliable materials, the interior meets uncertainty with companionship and reassurance. Cosy sitting places huddle by hearths amongst the irregular geometry. A veranda in the sun looks out into a landscape of grass mounds ascended by long spiral pathways. This is a 'home' distorted by worry. It is also a refuge where cancer sufferers can find support and maybe come to terms with their disease.

Architecturally this Maggie's Centre is a 'tour de force'. It is a successful and poetic collaboration of architecture and landscape design, and brings bright and exciting relief to the adjacent hospital buildings with their usual utilitarian dullness. This is a building that speaks of aspiration and healing, and in doing so it speaks also of humanity."

The client is Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres, founded by the architectural critic and landscape designer Charles Jencks following the loss of his wife Maggie Keswick Jencks to the disease 11 years ago. There are now four Maggie's Centres in Scotland, with a fifth planned in Lanarkshire. The latest centre opened in Kirkcaldy, Fife a week ago.

The assessors for the 2006 Award were: Clare Wright, Director, Wright & Wright Architects, London; Professor Simon Unwin, Chair of Architecture, University of Dundee School of Architecture; Frank McDonald, Environment Editor, The Irish Times; author of The Destruction of Dublin (1985), Saving the City (1989) and The Construction of Dublin (2000); Douglas Read, President RIAS; Dignan Read Dewar Architects, Edinburgh

The shortlisted buildings were:
Maggie's Highland Cancer Care Centre, Inverness (Page\Park)
The Scottish Storytelling centre, Edinburgh (Malcolm Fraser Architects)
Perth Concert Hall, Perth (Building Design Partnership Ltd)
St Mary's Metropolitan Cathedral redevelopment, Edinburgh (LDN Architects)
The Bridge Arts Centre, Easterhouse, Glasgow (Gareth Hoskins)
JKS Workshops, Clydebank (Gordon Murray + Alan Dunlop Architects)
The Saltire Centre, Glasgow (Building Design Partnership Ltd)
Kelvingrove New Century Project, (Building Design Partnership Ltd)
Three Seton Mains, Longniddry (Paterson Architects)
Royal Bank of Scotland HQ, Gogarburn, Edinburgh (Michael Laird Architects)