Barnes Construction has begun work on a new £5million seminar building at Robinson College, Cambridge.

And to mark the official start of the project, senior tutor Bill Nolan and facilities manager Bill McKim assisted in the installation of one of the 61 piles that will support the new building.

The steel-framed two-storey structure, which has been designed by Cambridge architect RH Partnership, is due for completion during the summer of next year, in time for the next academic year.

It is located in Adams Road, a major cycle route in the city, and will provide much-needed additional space within the college’s supervision and teaching facilities.

It will include a well-appointed and equipped flat-floored room offering classroom facilities for 80 people, supported by three teaching rooms each with capacity for 15 people which can also be combined into a single room offering a capacity for 50. The building will be self-contained and ideal for quiet learning within the college campus.

Bill Nolan said: “We are absolutely thrilled to announce the development of a new seminar building. This is an incredibly exciting project for the college, which will enhance and extend our teaching spaces and will greatly benefit the College’s academic community.”

Ipswich-based Barnes Construction, a member of the EADT/EDP Top100 listing of the 100 biggest companies in Suffolk and Norfolk, is no stranger to the Cambridge college sector, having received awards for work carried out at both Clare College and Corpus Christi College in the City.

Leckhampton House, a three- and four-storey student accommodation building at Corpus Christi College, designed by Cambridge-based Bland Brown and Cole, picked up the People’s Choice award as part of the Cambridge Design and Construction Awards for 2013,

It received 662 votes in an online poll, marking it out as Cambridge’s best new building of the year in the eyes of the public.

Barnes also received the Special Award for Considerate Contractor in respect of its work on the construction of a new student accommodation block at Clare College, Cambridge, last year.

More recently, Barns has also been working on the construction of a new 121-bedroom Premier Inn hotel in Newmarket Road, Cambridge, on behalf of Reef Estates.