DANISH architect Arne Jacobsen combined glass and concrete to give St Catherine’s College a striking modern look in 1962.

Now new student accommodation at the Oxford University college in Manor Road has been given a futuristic design to complement the existing Grade I listed architecture.

Oxford City Council has approved 78 student bedrooms over three floors in three ‘pavilion’-style buildings connected by glazed stairwells.

They are being built alongside a three-storey graduate centre, with work due to be completed in 2019.

The cylindrical graduate centre references Mr Jacobsen’s design and features a new Middle Common Room, a seminar room and a multi-use space on the ground floor.

Last year architect Purcell was appointed to complete the project.

Senior architect Matthew Tromans said: “It is hugely rewarding working with St Catherine’s College on this exciting project.

“They have a wonderful architectural legacy of which they are proud custodians.”

Fram Dinshaw, Finance Bursar at the college, said: “This was a demanding brief to make the best use of a difficult triangular site at the North East end of our main campus, which partly extends into the Green Belt and Flood Plain. “This is our last available space for development and we needed an architect who would both be sensitive to our Grade I listed Jacobsen buildings, and subsequent additions by Stephen Hodder, and equally pragmatic and responsive to the college’s evolving needs.

“It has been a real pleasure to work collaboratively on the design with Purcell and watch them negotiate all the challenges that the process threw up with imagination, tact, finesse and a healthy dose of common sense.”

Everything on the original campus was designed or approved by Jacobsen.

This included the buildings, furniture, landscape gardening – even the cutlery.