A SCOTTISH cancer centre has lost out in a bid for the UK's most coveted architecture prize.

The Maggie's Centre at Gartnavel Hospital in Glasgow, a radical single-level building in the form of a ring of interlocking rooms, was shortlisted for the Royal Institute of British Architects' (Riba) Stirling Prize.

The £20,000 prize went to the £82 million Sainsbury Laboratory, a new plant science research centre in Cambridge designed by first-time winners Stanton Williams, at last night's ceremony in Manchester.

The 80,000 capacity Olympic Stadium in London also lost out.

The judges described the laboratory as a university building "taken to an extraordinary degree of sophistication and beauty".

Riba president Angela Brady said: "The Sainsbury Laboratory is an exceptional building that achieves at many levels – in blending a world-class science facility with a public social space in a highly energy-efficient building."

The prize is in its 17th year and celebrates the best of new British architecture.