Celebrating the Best of Architecture

The highlight of the Dundee Institute of Architects year, the DIA Awards Dinner 2017, took place in November.

This year 187 guests joined us to celebrate the best of architecture in our chapter area.

Thanks are due to our sponsors, without whom we could not put on such a show, and also to the DIA team and their supporters who put in a shift to make sure the night went well.

Twenty-six architects practices submitted a total of ninety-seven entries. Both these totals are well up on previous years.

The judges were Helen O’Connor, Head of Architecture and Urban Planning at Dundee University, Jack McKeown, features writer at the Courier, and Diarmid McLachlan, President of the DIA.

Diarmid said “The quality of entries was very high this year and it was not easy whittling them down to a shortlist. We then spent a couple of days, and crossed several counties, visiting the shortlisted entries. We were privileged to see a wide variety of projects and were reassured by the range of good architecture in our area.

We also met a number of clients and were really impressed with their enthusiasm for what their architects had done for them.”

Awards are granted in 11 categories and the winners and commendations can be seen at the DIA website. New houses, extensions and alterations featured strongly in the Awards and all demonstrated the value employing an architect brings to a project.

In all the Award winning or commended domestic projects the architects created something individual and special that cleverly responded to the owners needs and also related to the particular place and location.

The Supreme Award, for the best project across all categories, went to Ben Scrimgeour Building Workshop for the Humpty House at Lintrathan by Kirriemuir.

The judges described this as is a subtle, original and beautifully crafted building, absolutely appropriate to it’s context. It is both a family home for Ben, Rosemary and their young family and their place of work. It talks to the history of living and working in farm houses but is open, modern and full of light. Work, meeting, family living and dining spaces all link together and also to the outside landscape. When you’re inside you can’t help but feel connected to the woods outside.

This building does not just respond to it’s setting. It is a place in and of the landscape to which it belongs.