THESE striking images show how a new £60m quad could prove ‘transformational’ for an Oxford University college.

A new cafe, gym and 120-seat lecture theatre are all included in the plans for Keble College, with hopes that construction work could begin next year.

The plan, approved in 2010 by Oxford City Council,will see 230 graduate rooms and new research facilities built at the former site of the Acland private hospital, with entrances on Banbury and Woodstock Roads.

It would be the largest building project undertaken by Keble since its founding in 1870 and has been made possible by a record £25m grant. The largest single donation in the college’s 145-year history, it has been pledged by the HB Allen Charitable Trust.

College warden Sir Jonathan Phillips said the development, which will have strong links with both Oxford University’s Radcliffe Observatory Quarter and the science area near Parks Road, would be “transformational”.

He added: “The site is at the heart of the university and is a significant step in the college’s history. It is at least comparable with the benefactions which contributed to its foundation.”

Construction could be finished by late 2018, he said, ahead of the college’s 150th anniversary in 2020.

The designs are the work of the late Rick Mather, the architect responsible for the £61m redevelopment of the Ashmolean Museum and two other buildings for Keble on its main site.

As well as accommodation and research spaces, set to house a university team behind an autonomous car project, the new development will also include seminar rooms and exhibition space.

At its heart will be the college’s Advanced Studies Centre, which encourages collaboration between researchers of different disciplines to help new innovations.

The Grade II-listed Acland Nursing Home, designed by Victorian architect Sir Thomas Graham Jackson, would become part of the new quad.

The trust donation comes as senior figures prepare to wind the organisation down by 2020. It was founded by Heather Allen in 1987, a philanthropist who died in 2005.

Keble College bursar Roger Boden said there were plans to extend a basement underneath the quad, with an application set to be submitted this week to the city council.

In addition to the HB Allen Charitable Trust grant, it has also been funded by a 40-year loan of £30m and donations totalling about £10m.