Stride Tregrown has received detailed planning permission for a new £50m Faculty of Business and Law building for the University of the West of England. Located in the proposed ‘Heart Zone’ of the Frenchay Campus masterplan the 17,000sqm building with accompanying plaza will form the most significant building and external space at the campus and will set the scene for future developments over the coming years. The building will provide high quality academic teaching space, staff space, external business facing spaces, lecture theatres and specialist teaching spaces which includes mock law courts and a mock city trading room. A key concept for the building was to promote collaboration and this developed into a building that encompasses two distinctive wings of accommodation which enclose a central atrium space that forms the heart of the building and incorporates a variety of social learning and flexible meeting spaces. This central atrium also provides links to the upper floors of both flanking wings via a feature circulation stair, a series of bridges and main lift core. On the ground floor the space opens up to the ‘Heartzone’ plaza to the south. Key active spaces such as the building reception and café (with social learning areas) provide vibrancy to enliven the space. The two wings of accommodation contrast to reflect the accommodation uses within and the orientation of the building on the site for environmental purposes. The east wing primarily accommodates staff accommodation and facilities with smaller cellular room sizes that are reflected in the external elevations through a staggered arrangement of smaller windows at a greater frequency, giving a lightness to the wing. The south and west elevations of the east wing incorporate brise soleil to provide solar shading to the building. The west wing primarily provides teaching rooms contained in larger volumes. Therefore the external elevations incorporate a more uniform larger format window arrangement than the east wing to reflect this use and as such a more solid nature to this wing is perceived externally.