A £3m refurbishment and expansion scheme at Cambridge University’s Faculty of Architecture and History of Art will get its official opening on April 15.

The new eco-architecture studio and the major refurbishment of the Georgian ‘Scroope Terrace’, featuring a new timber frame building, is designed to strengthen the department’s teaching and research functions.

Masterminded by head of department Professor Marcial Echenique and designed by Freeland Rees Roberts Architects with Mole Architects, the new building is a contemporary version of a Victorian warehouse building and exists as a column free, open-plan teaching space entirely constructed from timber, and cooled using innovative ceiling panels with a system that exchanges heat with the ground.

The large space is defined by an overhanging saw-tooth roof, supported by 15-metre timber trusses, providing excellent natural light without solar gain and forming part of a strategy to allow low-energy cooling.

This utilises high-level windows for good cross-ventilation and an innovative water-based cooling system designed by mechanical and electrical engineering consultants, Max Fordham.

Meredith Bowles of Mole Architects said: “The new studio building uses natural materials and efficient energy and construction systems which minimise the environmental impact of the building. The studio has attracted significant public attention as it has been specifically designed for the Department of Architecture and its students - our architects of the future."

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