Inverness Justice Centre has won a top award in the national Scottish Design Awards 2021 taking the prize for Public Building of the year in the Architecture category – the second prestigious award the building has won in recent months.
The IJC, designed by architects Reiach and Hall, beat other entries to win the prize in the Architecture category which was presented at a ceremony on Thursday 15 July.
SCTS Director of Property and 
Services David Currie said: “This is tremendous news and is a great credit for the hard work undertaken in the one team approach to successfully deliver our first justice centre.
It is great to win national recognition for our efforts and judging is also under way by the Architects Journal on a UK award so hopefully we can complete a hat-trick of design awards for the IJC in the near future.”
Commenting on the award, Reiach and Hall described the justice centre, which was built by Robertson Construction, as having a “serious, complex and sophisticated brief” adding that they were delighted that the building had been recognised as a winner and were grateful for the opportunity to design a new building type, the brief for which was ambitious and required huge commitment by all involved.
The Scottish Design Awards are open to all architects, engineers, graphic, interior and digital designers and seek to celebrate class-leading work, best practice, sustainability and innovation in all its forms. They are organised by Urban Realm, a leading body in architecture media.
In March, the building won the Architectural Excellence Award (Public) in The Scottish Property Awards 2021 and was also shortlisted in the Development of the Year (Public Buildings) category in the same awards. The judges said the justice centre “showed excellent execution of producing a building which is sympathetic to the ethos and seriousness of the nature of the brief”.
Scotland’s first purpose-built Justice Centre opened on 30 March 2020. The landmark facility, which began construction in 2017, is designed to bring together integrated justice services under one roof to support victims, witnesses, litigants and other users, with specially designed facilities for children and vulnerable witnesses.
It has played a pivotal role in maintaining essential justice services for Scotland during the COVID crisis supporting both in person and online hearings.