BUILDERS are working hard on two striking developments in Jericho, as one prepares to open in the autumn.

Construction is going on in Walton Street, where the £18m Cohen Quadrangle for Exeter College is being built plus Oxford University’s £75m Blavatnik School of Government.

The Blavatnik building – expected to open in October – will replace three separate temporary sites in use since 2012 when the school was established.

Benefactor Leonard Blavatnik, said by Forbes to have a net worth of more than £12bn, gave cash for the work in 2010.

It has been designed to be environmentally friendly and to promote “open discussion, interaction and collaboration”, with two horseshoe-shaped lecture theatres on the ground floor to seat up to 120 people.

Next year another part of the building with an exhibition space is expected to open to the public.

For students on top floors, it will also boast impressive views of Oxford due to its height.

At 22.5 metres, the Blavatnik is higher than the 18.2-metre limit usually imposed on buildings in 1,200 metres of Carfax Tower.

Calum Miller, chief operating officer of the school, said: “We are grateful to the construction team for hard work and to residents for patience.”

As the Blavatnik work nears completion, Exeter College hopes to move the first students into its new Cohen Quadrangle in 13 months.

The quad has been built on the site of the former Ruskin College building, with all the old buildings demolished apart from the 1913 facade.

It will house teaching and lecture spaces, a café, library collections and 90 student rooms.

Hannah Constantine, of Alison Brooks Architects, said the college had been able to re-use some of the stone from the former Ruskin College building. She added: “It has always been important to create strong links between Ruskin College and the 21st century building and this helps us to fulfil that vision while at the same time creating strong [visual] appeal.”

Exeter College bought the Ruskin site for £7m in 2010, after Ruskin College’s move to Ruskin Hall in Old Headington.

The new building is named in honour of the parents of Sir Ronald Cohen, whose foundation gave £9m to the works, which require 400 tonnes of stone.

There was a row last year when residents of Worcester Street, which runs beside the building off Walton Street, said a curved metallic roof would reflect sunlight on to homes, cause glare and raise temperatures.

Exeter College said roof tiles will be anodised and bead-blasted to reduce any shine.

The college expects to take on the building next July and will house its treasures there.

It will move its 30,000-strong special collection, which includes documents, papers, rare books and manuscripts, in 2017.