The small animal hospital at Glasgow University has won the best building award from the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS)

Valued at £25,000, it's the largest prize of its kind in the UK.

Other contenders included the Beatson Institute cancer centre in Glasgow, a boathouse at Balnearn, and an Edinburgh swimming pool.

Judges said the animal hospital building's great triumph was the "unique and ingenious way it integrates a very substantial medical facility within the parkland setting of Glasgow University's Garscube Estate".

The £15 million state-of-the-art facility was officially opened in September and has the capacity to treat more than 500 animals every week.

The RIAS also praised "the rooftop lantern and the boldly defined entrance", adding: "This is a highly complex work of architecture which sets new standards in the design of buildings for veterinary medicine."

Chair of the judging panel, Professor Andrew MacMillan, said: "While the Small Animal Hospital was the judge's unanimous choice as winner a number of other buildings came very close.

"Scottish architecture is in remarkably good heart."

Minister for Culture, Mike Russell MSP, added: "I commend the quality of this year's shortlist which shows that Scottish architecture today is a match for the best internationally.

"We are all operating in tough economic times and it is vitally important for Scottish businesses and Scottish places to be associated with quality."