Dubbed Softbridge building, the £11 million ($17.37 million) project will contain three levels and a basement. It will feature a library and reading room, and an auditorium with translation facilities, which will double the amount of space currently available. In addition to that, the building will also feature a café and specialist archive storage rooms for precious college resources. Its new lecture theatre, replacing the cramped rooms where public seminars are currently held, will offer 125 seats and disabled access.
The glass curtain walling and steel cladding provides a spectacular look to the building. It will form a suspended ‘bridge’ between numbers 66 and 68 Woodstock Road and will offer 1,200 square metres of floor-space. For maintaining sustainability, FSC-approved timber will be used in construction.
Situated between two listed buildings, it will enhance and enlarge the learning facilities available to students and post-graduates within the university’s Middle East Centre. According to Zaha Hadid,”The design defines a series of academic and research facilities using a formal language of paths and connections that allows the existing buildings to be read as separate elements, maintaining their current detached character. The floating nature of the ‘bridge’ is emphasised via its stainless steel cladding which has a light and ephemeral appearance to echo its context.”
Upon completion, the new building will be known as The Investcorp Building, and will benefit the local economy and environment. Work is due for completion in August 2014, ahead of the 2014/15 academic year.
