Broadway Malyan's new Coventry Uni block graduates planning

Broadway Malyan-designed proposals for new a four-storey building to house students at Coventry University’s Faculty of Engineering, Electronics and Computing have been approved by the city council.

The £29m structure is the practice’s third design for the university to gain consent in recent years. Last year saw the completion of a new central hub for the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, while its Centre for Applied Low Carbon Propulsion Systems is currently under construction.

Broadway Malyan said the latest addition to the university’s campus would provide a focus for science, technology, engineering and mathematics outreach and enterprise activities and complement the Arup-designed ECB1, the faculty’s existing teaching block which opened in 2012. The two structures will be linked via a new covered bridge.

The new four-storey building will provide range of learning spaces including a gaming and virtual reality studio, a specialist area for 3D printing and rapid prototyping, a laser facility and physics and electronics laboratories.

Broadway Malyan associate Andrew Goldthorpe said the new building – named ECB2 – would have a “clean and understated design” of grey brick and concrete in response to the myriad existing styles within the university campus.

“The building sits adjacent to ECB1 and the Frederick Lanchester Library, both very distinctive buildings in their own right,” he said.

“Our approach was to create a building that was not trying to compete with its neighbours but instead tie the different architecture together.

“ECB2 will offer a different aesthetic but with a complementary palette that offers a calming urban influence on this prominent site with a stunning interior that will deliver another world-class learning environment for the university.”

Construction work is due to start this summer with the building expected to open its doors to students in autumn 2020.