On a Chinese mountain, it looks like the new 007 set - but this is made in Scotland

IT MAY look like the kind of lair where James Bond would have a face-off with his latest nemesis. But this spectacular cliff-top building is actually in line to be the headquarters of a whisky distiller - in China.

• View to a thrill: under the Scottish firm's design plan, the proposed whisky company's spectacular HQ would jut out over the Red River gorge

A Scottish architectural practice has reached the final of an international design competition with its design for the "zig-zag" building, which would be built on the edge of a vast gorge above the Red River in a remote corner of Sichuan. It is one of two contenders to become the home of Lang Jiu Whisky, with the complex also featuring a hotel and conference centre.

Edinburgh-based Richard Murphy Architects, best known in Scotland for its work on arts venues such as Dundee Contemporary Arts and the Stirling Tolbooth, has proposed a building said to have been inspired by China's traditional bridges.

The development would be built into the gorge with only the roof of the hotel and conference centre clearly visible, while the distillery firm's HQ would jut out into thin air at the cliff edge.

The whisky industry in China is booming and only last week a deal was struck to ensure Scotch whisky was protected from imitation spirits in the Chinese market.

China is seen as an emerging market for whisky, with exports from Scotland alone growing from 1 million in 2001 to some 80m last year.

The architectural firm was invited to enter the competition by the company behind the scheme - the New Horizon Development Company - after founder Richard Murphy under-took a lecture tour of China earlier this year to raise the firm's profile.

The practice had already designed a new headquarters for the British High Commission in Sri Lanka.

Mr Murphy said: "It has come about by an accident to an extent. There is a Chinese student working in our office who helped line up a lot of good contacts for the tour and we ended up meeting the developers behind the project.

"The site has an absolutely spectacular setting, immediately above the gorge of the Red River, which flows past the small town of Erlang, most of which the whisky distillers actually own.The corporate headquarters of the company would be in this trapezoid-shaped building at the edge of the cliff, with a cascade staircase to the managing director's office at the very top.

"We don't actually know what the budget is for the project - we've not been told that - although the cost of everything in China seems to be about a fifth of what it is here.

"It's been a lot of fun to work on, very enjoyable, and has already led to us working on designs for a housing project with the same developer.

"It's obviously important for a business like ours to be raising our profile overseas, especially in the current climate in Scotland, where there are few public building projects happening and no sign of a real improvement in the private sector."

Another Edinburgh practice, Sutherland Hussey Architects in Leith, won an international competition to design a new museum, which will be the main cultural building in the Chinese city of Chengdu. Work is already under way on the complex, which is due for completion within three years.