[5] From 1999 until the opening of the new building in 2004, committee rooms and the debating chamber of the Scottish Parliament were housed in the General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland located on The Mound in Edinburgh.

The Parliament Building won numerous awards including the 2005 Stirling Prize and has been described by landscape architect Charles Jencks as "a tour de force of arts and crafts and quality without parallel in the last 100 years of British architecture".

[11][12] Comprising an area of 1.6 ha (4 acres), with a perimeter of 480 m (1570 ft),[13] the Scottish Parliament Building is located 1 km (0.6 mi) east of Edinburgh city centre on the edge of the Old Town.

The south eastern side of the complex is bounded by the Our Dynamic Earth visitor attraction which opened in July 1999, and Queen's Drive which fringes the slopes of Salisbury Crags.

[24] Construction, which was undertaken by Bovis Lend Lease,[25] commenced in June 1999, with the demolition of the Scottish and Newcastle brewery and the beginning of foundation work to support the structure of the building.

"[29] The result was a non-hierarchical, organic collection of low-lying buildings intended to allow views of, and blend in with, the surrounding rugged scenery, and symbolise the connection between nature and the Scottish people.

[7] The Parliament is actually a campus of several buildings, reflecting different architectural styles, with a total floor area of 31,000 square metres (312,000 sq ft),[31] providing accommodation for MSPs, their researchers and parliamentary staff.

[33] It is said that in the first design meeting, Miralles, armed with some twigs and leaves, thrust them onto a table and declared "This is the Scottish Parliament",[34] reinforcing the unique and abstract nature of the parliamentary campus.

[16] Adjacent to the landscaped area of the complex, where it meets Horse Wynd, there is an open plan piazza, with bike racks, seating and external lighting shaped like rocks incorporated into concrete paving.

Shortly after the official opening of the building, Enric Miralles' widow, Benedetta Tagliabue, revealed that the design is simply that of a window curtain pulled back.

[36] Her late husband however, enjoying the use of ambiguous forms with multiple meanings, had previously said he would love the profile to evoke an icon of Scottish culture, the painting of The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch.

[29] The architectural critic Charles Jencks finds this a particularly apt metaphor for balanced movement and democratic debate and also notes the irony that Miralles too was skating on ice with his designs for the building.

During summer months, the building opens the windows during the night time when it is unoccupied and permits the heavy concrete floors and structure to cool and rid themselves of heat absorbed during the day.

The necessities of a modern parliament, banks of light, cameras, electronic voting and the MSPs' console have all been transformed into works of craft and art, displaying the sweeping curves and leaf motifs that inform the rest of the building.

[49] The most distinctive feature of the MSP block are the unusual windows which project out from the building onto the western elevation of the parliamentary complex, inspired by a combination of the repeated leaf motif and the traditional Scottish stepped gable.

The Tower Buildings are home to the public entrance of the Scottish Parliament and to the Main Hall, which is located on the eastern side of the parliamentary complex, beneath the debating chamber.

[53] Like much of the parliamentary complex, the materials used to construct the Main Hall and its vaulted ceiling include Kemnay Granite from Aberdeenshire in north east Scotland and Caithness stone, which is used in much of the flooring in the buildings.

[56] The Scottish Parliament holds a wide variety of artwork and sculpture ranging from specially commissioned pieces to official gifts from overseas parliamentary delegations.

In order to facilitate the incorporation of art into the building, a consultative steering group was established by the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) under the chairmanship of Jamie Stone MSP with the remit of deciding which artworks should be chosen.

Presented by the Queen upon the opening of the Parliament building, the sculpture is modelled on the actual Honours of Scotland, the crown, sceptre and the sword of the state, and combines these three separate elements into one composition.

Commissioned by the art strategy group, the desk combines a unique design constructed from oak and sycamore, and functions as a workstation for six members of parliamentary staff.

[66] The mace sits in front of the Presiding Officers' desk; it is made from silver and inlaid with gold panned from Scottish rivers, and inscribed with the words "Wisdom", "Compassion", "Justice" and "Integrity".

[12] This prompted Catherine Slessor, writing in the Architectural Review, to describe it as "A Celtic-Spanish cocktail to blow both minds and budgets, it doesn't play safe, energetically mining a new seam of National Romanticism refined and reinterpreted for the twenty-first century.

[86] The project was also complicated by the deaths of Miralles in July 2000, of Dewar the following October and the existence of a multi-headed client consisting of the SPCB, the Presiding Officer and an architectural advisor.

However, it was later rejected that the re-designs required to incorporate greater security into the building structure were the "single biggest" factor affecting the increased costs of the project.

"[89] The inquiry also resisted the temptation to "lay all of the blame at the door of a deceased wayward architectural genius [Miralles].....costs rose because the client wanted increases and changes or at least approved of them in one manifestation or other.

Primarily, in terms of design selection and when using an international architect linking with a Scottish-based firm, the report advised that a full analysis of the compatibility of different working cultures and practices needs to be made.

Alongside that recommendation, Lord Fraser stated that independent advisors should be retained and have the ability to communicate their advice to ministers, without those views being "filtered" by public officials.

Similarly, where civil servants are part of large project management contracts, clear guidelines of governance should be set out and be as rigorous as standards applied in the private sector.

[89] Following publication of the report, Jack McConnell stated that the Fraser recommendations would be fully implemented, and that fundamental reform of the civil service was already under way, with trained professionals being recruited to handle such projects.