A cosy and cheerful daycare centre for cancer sufferers in Inverness has scooped Scotland's 'Building of the Year' award, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor

Think of a standard hospital complex and the very opposite is Maggie's Highlands Cancer Care Centre, in Inverness.

It's one of five such daycare centres developed in memory of Maggie Keswick Jencks, late wife of Charles Jencks, the arch-priest of post-modern architecture; she died from cancer in 1995.

The centres aim to provide a caring, homely environment for anyone who has cancer and are usually located next to existing hospitals.

In all cases - including the latest one in Dundee, by Zaha Hadid - they were designed free of charge by the architects on the principle that buildings can uplift people.

That is certainly true of the Maggie's centre in Inverness, which I visited on a tour of 10 projects shortlisted for the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) "Building of the Year" award - named in honour of the late Andrew Doolan, the colourful developer associated with Glasgow's Merchant City.

A swirling object clad in pre-patinated copper, it was designed by Glasgow-based architects Page & Park for a site in the foreground of Raigmore Hospital - just in front of its oncology unit. Cosy and cheerful, it provides a welcome relief for cancer patients to sit and chat by a fire within its irregular geometry.

Fellow juror Simon Unwin, professor of architecture at Dundee University, summed it up by saying that the architects had "tackled a delicate brief with disarming wit and comforting good humour", creating a "complex tangle of intertwining curves" lined with warm and pliable materials - mainly plywood.

Enclosed gas fires are set in large windows that look out into a garden featuring two grass mounds ascended by long spiral pathways, which were designed by Charles Jencks.

The four of us jurors were so captivated by it that we flopped into sofas around one of the fireplaces and just didn't want to leave.

We had already seen five buildings on the previous day, starting with a flat-roofed, timber-clad house on the edge of a hamlet in East Lothian, with a panoramic view over the Firth of Forth. Meticulously designed by Patterson Architects, a young husband-and-wife team, it is also their own family home.

Fellow juror Clare Wright, a Scottish-born architect based in London (with roots in Co Monaghan), thought it had something of the magic of a musical instrument, while Simon Unwin saw it as a small but beautifully composed Japanese haiku poem, intertwining life, landscape and the changing seasons.

We were less impressed by a new glazed extension to St Mary's Catholic Cathedral in Edinburgh, which dates from 1813.

As often happens, it looked a lot better in photographs than it does in reality. A community outreach initiative, it provides a bright and airy multi-purpose hall, meeting room and café.

The Scottish Storytelling Centre, beside John Knox's old house on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, contains a range of spaces to cater for the "magic art of telling stories", including a tiered theatre.

Designed by Malcolm Fraser Architects, one of its many joys is a chance to ring the city bell, cast in 1621.

What struck Douglas Read, president of the RIAS, was the courage of the architects in bringing an "absolutely modern building to a medieval setting". According to Clare Wright, the "trick was in the use of materials" - stone and render outside and "very sensual and appropriate" timber-clad walls within.

The jury was more divided on the merits of the Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters, near Edinburgh Airport. Designed by Michael Laird Architects and RHWL, it is an enormous office complex carefully set in landscaped grounds previously occupied by a random collection of mental hospital buildings.

The new headquarters is laid out along an internal street with an extraordinary range of cafés and shops, including a Tesco branch and a dry cleaners, to cater for 3,500 staff.

For Wright and Unwin, it was all too corporate. But Douglas Read and I felt it was a very good example for other large companies to follow.

Wright did agree that the RBS showed how even the private sector could commission good architecture - unlike the British government, which (like our own) goes for "cheap tat, design-and-build or PFI" (Private Finance Initiatives). She just felt that the best work should also have "an element of playfulness".

I could not persuade the others to shortlist Reid Architecture's air traffic control tower at Edinburgh Airport, even though Read agreed that it is "an iconic building, a terrific piece of sculpture".

But Unwin found its proportions unsatisfying and Wright thought that it looks like a squeezed London "Gherkin".

In Perth, not many people approved of plans to spend £12 million (€17.8 million) on a concert hall, but they have

now been won over by the multi-functional, state-of-the-art result.

Designed by BDP, it is in constant use - even for old-time céili - and the foyer has become a very popular meeting place.

BDP was also the author of a major renovation - even re- invention - of Glasgow's Kelvingrove Museum.

New gallery spaces were opened in the lower ground floor, increasing the exhibition space by a third. Circulation through the late-Victorian building is much improved and stonework has been cleaned.

In the Saltire Centre at Glasgow Caledonian University, BDP has redefined the very concept of a university library to provide a new kind of environment for learning. Linking two existing buildings, the centre combines library, display and social spaces and has rapidly become the hub of the campus.

Even more outstanding is the Bridge Arts Centre, in Glasgow's bleak suburb of Easterhouse.

As Unwin noted, it is "a bridge in more than one sense". With a series of sloping floor planes, it bridges between levels and across space to link two existing facilities - a further education college and a swimming pool.

"But crucially, this is a centre that offers a generous range of accommodation - theatre, library, gallery, recording studio - as a 'bridge' for the local community into performance, creativity and learning," as the jury's citation reads.

Designed by Gareth Hoskins Architects, the library alone is a tour de force.

We saw the JKS Workshops, in the Clydebank area Glasgow, as the rain was pouring down. By GM+AD Architects, it provides low-rent industrial space for start-up companies in single-storey buildings clad in screen-printed panels and colourful back-lit glazing - effectively re-branding this building type.

Serving on the jury for a major architectural award is both a privilege and a pleasure, even though visiting 10 buildings in two days was also a daunting task.

In the end, we were unanimous in giving the main award to Maggie's Highlands Cancer Care Centre, as a standard-bearer for new architecture in Scotland.