Introducing The Diamond

The start of term in September 2015 saw the opening of the University’s new £81 million Diamond building – our largest ever investment in teaching and learning.

Located on the site of the former Jessop's Hospital, opposite St. George's Church, the Diamond creates a fantastic place for modern interdisciplinary teaching, and also provides specialist engineering teaching facilities, a range of lecture theatres, seminar rooms, open-plan learning spaces, library services and social spaces, including a café.

The Vision for the Diamond has been to give staff and students the ability to move between formal and informal learning situations in new and exciting ways. A variety of environments with different types of study spaces - low density study spaces, enabling effective long duration study and enabling 100% occupancy to be achieved without degradation of study space quality and collaborative workspaces to enhance strong learner support provision.

See below for the architects fly-through of the building;

The Diamond's Facilities

• almost 1000 study spaces
• over 300 individual study spaces that can be silent for exam preparation
• 16 group rooms ranging in size from 6 to 20
• many more informal meeting and collaboration spaces ranging from soft furniture to study booths
• low-density study spaces designed for effective long duration study
• open and secure 24/7
• fully accessible for all students
• supported by an expanding rich digital collection, with a core print reference collection
• dynamic on-demand loanable collection
• wifi throughout
• 8 Media editing booths
• 2 rooms with a total of 30 high-end media editing machines
• 1 recording studio
• 4 computing teaching labs with more than 400 computers
• variety of other teaching spaces ranging from lecture theatres to more collaborative studios accommodating 2000 students in total