Two award-winning buildings designed by Archial Architects, one of the largest architecture practices in Scotland and the UK, have been nominated for Roses Design Awards.

The buildings are Pollok Civic Realm, which recently won a Royal Institute of British Architects Regional Award, and Dumfries Dental Centre, which won the NHS Scotland Environment, Estates and Facilities Annual Design Award in 2007, The Paul Taylor Award 2007 'Best Entry' to all three categories and was a finalist of the Carbon Trust Awards 2008.

Built between the newly expanded Pollok Health Centre and the Pollok Leisure Centre, the £6.7 million Pollok Civic Realm is Glasgow's first facility with truly integrated health and social work and leisure facilities.

Forming part of the overall Pollok Town Centre regeneration, it houses a café, library, museum, child-care facilities and other specialist social and healthcare related services.


Russell Baxter of Archial Architects said: "The idea behind this facility was to create a colonnade providing a route interlinking the Pollok community with the new transport interchange and Silverburn shopping centre so that people are drawn through the building and, by virtue of this route, encouraged to make use of their civil amenities.

"The philosophy underlying the building design was to create a civic hub that housed all the various essential aspects of communal life under one roof. With that in mind, the building seeks to create an all-inclusive space with all its constituents spiralling off from a central reception desk."

The £2.7m Dumfries Dental Centre and Outreach Teaching Facility, meanwhile, is a multi functional dental centre incorporating eight General Practitioner surgeries, six outreach training surgeries and four primary care dentistry training surgeries, including ancillary accommodation.

The centre is situated within the grounds of Dumfries Royal Infirmary located between the infirmary campus and the Crichton campus. The building is long and linear in plan, culminating in a semi-circular form at its Southern point and has been orientated on site to create a strong physical link between both campus.

The topography of the site slopes down to the southern edge with the built form raised and supported on a plinth of steel columns at this point. This increases the visual impact of the building as you enter the hospital grounds from Glencaple Road.

A palette of bright, bold colours has been used to enliven the internal environment and make it visually stimulating. It is hoped that this will have the benefit of helping anxious patients by making the visit to the dentist less daunting.

(GK/KMcA)