Scottish Crime Campus

The Scottish Crime Campus is a Scottish Government-funded, state of- the-art facility eight miles from central Glasgow, providing high quality office accommodation, together with forensic laboratories and numerous support facilities to enhance collaboration between various anti-crime agencies.

One of the principle objectives for the project was to facilitate inter-agency working. To achieve the savings possible by vacating a dozen or so 1980s speculative office building by co-locating all in one purpose built facility.

The brief was complex in terms of adjacencies, security levels and non-contamination of evidence. As a consequence, a functional analysis provided a means of designing form through a metaphorical or allegorical interpretation of the key elements as visual cues to generate new forms.

A strong design ethos was established based on technologies used in crime detection, with DNA and chromosome biology selected as main themes. The primary circulation is at the centre of the building, at the point where the two chromatid shapes would touch. Connecting bridge elements through the atrium were also initially inspired by DNA chain connections.

This project is unique in Scotland for a number of reasons. It is the Scottish Government’s largest single investment in architecture in service of the community. Secondly it is an exemplar of design led programmes as embedded in the National Architectural Policy – creating places, first life, then spaces, then buildings. Most importantly, though it places justice and security as fundamental supports to the state, the building embodies the durability of this principle whilst its openness signifies accessibility and the building as a supporter of the citizens, for their benefit and well being.