Plans for a new landmark building to provide work, teaching and social learning space at Aston University have been submitted to Birmingham City Council.

The building represents the first stage of Aston University’s masterplan and long-term strategy to create a campus that offers an outstanding experience for staff and students, as well as bringing improvements to surrounding communities and the city of Birmingham. The inventively designed construction will also feature a ground floor public arcade.

The architects on the scheme are Hawkins\Brown, Hoare Lee, Price & Myers and Exterior Architecture (ExA).Hawkins\Brown is one of the UK’s leading architects in the education sector and has worked on academic and research buildings for institutions that include University College London, the University of Oxford and the University of Manchester.

Ridge and Partners has provided project management services, with CBRE preparing the planning application and PMP Consultants providing cost management.

Ian Oldacre, director of estates at Aston University, said: “Our ambitious campus vision sets out our aspiration to invest significantly in the delivery of a ‘destination campus’ to meet the changing demands and opportunities faced by universities.“Aston University’s future growth will embrace evolving trends such as online and remote learning, greater connectivity, the growth in international students and closer collaboration with commercial partners and the business community. “This new landmark building represents the first stage of our masterplan and long-term strategy. “We have worked closely with our partners at Birmingham City Council to develop a building of iconic status, not only for Aston University, but for the city of Birmingham.”

Tom Noonan, partner at Hawkins\Brown, said: “Our proposed design for this landmark building looks to serve as a dynamic new front door to Aston’s campus - an interface between the University and the wider city. “It is designed as a building of two halves: civic uses are provided in the lower section which opens out onto a landscaped plaza, enabling new public routes to emerging districts such as Birmingham's knowledge quarter. “Above this plinth is a more playful lantern which contains learning spaces and academic offices. The dynamic and visually striking lantern offers roof terraces where the floorplates shift and is designed to deliver new types of flexible spaces for the University well into the future.”