It may be apocryphal, but I was once told there are as many architects in London’s Clerkenwell as the whole of Scotland. Having spent much of my career in the former, with frequent visits to the latter, I am now based in Edinburgh for the first time since student days, better placed to observe the disparity of scale and intensity of activity.

The Royal Scottish Academy’s (RSA) annual exhibition is one of the few barometers of the architectural scene in Scotland and I am always struck by the contrast between the large and the small that you wouldn’t see at, say, the Royal Academy Summer Show in London. It’s immediately evident that many Scottish architects, the vast majority of whom are very small practices, revel in the restraints of rural and often remote locations that are a world away from the larger projects found in the four big cities - Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee.

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