Grass roof for £40m Cornwall university

The Tremough campus will include a landscaped roof

Plans have been unveiled for the £40m main campus for the new Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC).

The futuristic building at Tremough near Falmouth will incorporate a fully landscaped roof.

It has been designed as a fully accessible series of landscaped terraces stepped down the side of the hill and will be planted with local species, grasses and shrubs.

The building is a major element of the £96m CUC project, which is being constructed in two phases.

'Radical'

The project director, Jonathan Adams, said: "We wanted to design a unique campus to reflect the unique nature of the CUC while complementing the historic setting of Tremough.

"It is designed to be a varied and engaging place to teach, to study or to visit, and marks a radical departure in the design of university campuses."

As well as the main Tremough campus, there will be several satellite sites across Cornwall, leading to a huge increase in higher education provision in the county.

The campus will take over two years to build

Stephen Bohane, Cornwall Head of Operations for the South West Regional Development Agency, said: "This is another example of Cornwall leading the way with the very latest in cutting edge design and sustainability."

The project is a collaboration between Falmouth College of Arts, the University of Exeter, the University of Plymouth, the Open University, the College of St Mark and St John, Cornwall College, Truro College and Penwith College.

Work on the new campus is expected to begin in July, with the first buildings completed by September of next year and the remainder by September of 2004.

The CUC is expected to create 1,000 new jobs, 4,000 additional student places and contribute £32m to the Cornish economy each year by 2010.