FIVE hundred members of St John’s College, Oxford, will today celebrate the opening of a new £35m quadrangle.

Colleges in Oxford are famous around the world for their well-kept lawns. But the new St John’s quad can claim to be one of the country’s greenest buildings in the environmental sense.

The quad is one of the biggest schemes to have been completed by an Oxford college for years, providing 70 student rooms, a library, a college archive, cafe, gym, communal spaces and new teaching rooms.

It will be named after the Nobel Prize winning chemist and former president of the college, Sir John Kendrew, who died in 1997, aged 80.

St John’s says the quad’s modern design sits sensitively in one of Oxford’s most beautiful and most visited colleges. The design includes cutting edge measures to reduce energy use, halving its carbon footprint and generating enough power to cover half the heating bill. Solar panels will provide 20 per cent of the hot water needed.

The scheme also involved the restoration of older, listed buildings on the site, including a 17th century barn, which has been converted into a new exhibition and performance space.

Principal bursar Prof Andrew Parker said: “The college is delighted to have this spectacular building.

“The design has many features that support the goals of environmental friendliness.”

MJP Architects, who designed the building, were also responsible for the college’s garden quadrangle, completed in 1994, and a senior common room extension built in 2004.