Housing specialist engineering facilities as well as seminar room and open plan study spaces,[1] it was completed in September 2015 at a cost of £81 million, the largest capital investment ever made by the university.

[3][4] Construction work began in July 2013 and the building opened in September 2015, in time for the start of that year's autumn semester.

[5] The building takes its name from its unique facade, which comprises a cellular pattern of interconnected diamond shapes made of anodised aluminium, inspired by the form of diamond at a molecular level, over a frame of reinforced concrete and exterior glass cladding.

[6] It has nine lecture theatres, nineteen laboratories and more than thirty classrooms,[7] linked by a central atrium area with a large study space and a café.

The architectural magazine Building Design described it thus: "with the efficiency of a twin-thrust turbo engine, it commits sins on both the outside and the inside.