The Inverness Campus has been highly commended by a national body which celebrates strong local building design which brings community benefits.
The campus, a 215-acre site being developed by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) as a collaboration centre for business, research and academia, received the commendation in the recent Scottish Civic Trust (SCT) My Place Awards.
The Isle of Harris Distillery also won the top chairman’s award at the event, in recognition of the distinctive distillery design and its economic and social contribution to Harris.
The SCT’s chairman, Colin McLean, praised the distillery for creating “18 high quality, well-paid jobs in a place where they are badly needed” and providing a social space at the canteen for locals to meet.
Opening in May 2015, Inverness Campus is already home to a number of public and private sector organisations with a combined total of more than 600 employees on site.
The first phase of the campus creates an infrastructure and framework on the eastern edge of the city for current and future business, research and education growth. The campus landscape design was led by Harrison Stevens based on the overall masterplan by 7N architects.
The SCT judges said: “The scheme achieves much in terms of breaking down barriers between academia and local community, as well as creating an attractive new environment which will help attract people to and retain people in Inverness.”
The commendation is the latest in a series of accolades for Inverness Campus.
An t-Eilean, a central feature of the campus designed by Lisa Mackenzie, won the 2015 Landscape Institute for Scotland public vote.
Aurora House, a purpose-built £2million building designed for life science companies, won the 2016 British Council of Offices award. The stone monoliths at the entrance to Inverness Campus received a Stone Federation Award in 2016.
The campus was also highly commended in the 2016 UK Planning and Placemaking Awards.
