We are thrilled to announce that Laidlaw Music Centre, University of St Andrews has won an RIBA National Award.

The Music Centre creates new opportunities for young people from the local community as well as its students to connect with the performing arts.

The Laidlaw is the first building dedicated to music in the university’s 600-year history and contains an intimate performing venue, flexible rehearsal space, and a high-tech recording facility.

The building also creates a new quadrangle as an extension of the historic St Mary’s Quadrangle – the oldest part of the University dating to the 16th century.

The Oak lined McPherson Recital room is the world’s first chamber hall with a reverberation chamber and is sized to allow a symphony orchestra to rehearse and for chamber music recitals with audiences of up to 250.

To allow the wide range of performance and audience layouts, the entire floor of the hall incorporates a grid of mechanised lifts which allow an infinite variety of spatial configurations - another world first for music spaces.