£30 million new building up for planning permission

The new Barbara Hepworth Building will be home for art, design and architecture

THE University of Huddersfield aims to begin work soon on the construction of a dramatically-sited, £30 million building that will be the new home for the study of art, design and architecture at the University.  Named the Barbara Hepworth Building – after the famous West Yorkshire-born sculptor – its main frontage overlooks the picturesque Huddersfield Narrow Canal that runs through the heart of the University’s campus.

A planning application has been lodged for the five-storey, 7,500 square metre building.  It was designed by global architectural practice AHR – which has historic roots in Huddersfield – and the main contractors will be leading construction firm Morgan Sindall.

This reunites the team behind the University’s £28 million Oastler Building, opened earlier this year by the University’s Chancellor, HRH The Duke of York, KG.  The Director of Estates and Facilities, Colin Blair, said that he was deeply impressed by the performance of AHR and Morgan Sindall and therefore delighted that the collaboration has been renewed.

It is hoped that work on the Barbara Hepworth Building will begin in autumn this year and should be completed in the autumn of 2019.  It will be the first building on a former industrial site cleared in 2016, now known as the Western Campus.  The new home for the School of Art, Design and Architecture will occupy about 20 per cent of this site, leaving some 20,000 square metres and scope for at least four more buildings as part of the University of Huddersfield’s rolling programme of development.  

View the new building below...