The five-storey building is being funded for the most part by a donation from Hong-Kong based philanthropist Dickson Poon CBE.
Ray Willis, senior project manager at Galliford Try Building, will oversee the project which yesterday saw preliminary works start on the St Hugh’s College site in the city.
The new 70,000 sq ft building will contain a 100-seat lecture theatre, a communal Chinese courtyard, two language laboratories, four seminar rooms and 69 offices and 63 en suite student rooms.
It will also contain a dedicated library with study carrels and a reading room, which will provide a permanent home for books from the Bodleian Library’s China Collection.