A roof of wild flowers, green walls and solar panels are just some of the eco-friendly features planned for the University of Bradford's £75 million new-look campus.

Detailed plans have been drawn up for a state-of-the-art £2m Norcroft Conference Centre which includes an interactive lecture theatre - the largest of its kind in the country - with satellite links across the world.

It is part of the £15m first phase of a huge campus revamp.

The NCC will be one of the first "eco conference" buildings in the country.

Its design will include a no-maintenance 'seedum' roof of wild flowers, which will change colour with the seasons, and 'green' walls, on which plants will grow. Both of these will act as insulators. Solar panels will also generate electricity.

The 250-seater lecture theatre will link lecturers with their students by computer. And the theatre will also be able to hold world-wide video-conferences via satellite. The theatre will be loaned out to companies and groups to generate commercial funding for the campus.

The university's estates and facilities director Clive Wilson said the NCC, the first conference centre of its kind in the city centre, was a major aspect of the modernisation of the site to create a vibrant "learning village".

"The idea is that rather than the lecturer just standing at the front giving a lecture, he or she will be able to test students as they work through the lecture by sending them questions directly to monitors on their tables," he said.

"It will be a two-way link so students can respond to questions and also send questions to the lecturer.

"It is an innovative and exciting building which will help to ensure students gain the full benefits from their lectures.

"And the whole building is also environmentally friendly."

The building will be between the Institute of Pharmaceutical Innovation (IPI), and the new £6m Institute of Cancer Therapeutics (ICT), which will be built by spring 2006. "The IPI has links with the US, Japan and other parts of the world, and this facility will help to hold seminars with other experts across the globe," said Mr Wilson.

The NCC will also house meeting rooms and a cafe.

A £6m recladding scheme for the Richmond Building, the campus's landmark building in Great Horton Road is also planned. The plans, drawn up by Saltaire architects Rance, Booth and Smith, will involve re-covering the whole building during the next four summers.

"The re-cladding uses a mixture of coated aluminium panels, glazing and curtain walling to break up the mass of the building. "This will give some relief and drama to what is at present a monolithic block structure," said Mr Wilson.

Designs have also been drawn up for a glass atrium between the Great Hall and the Richmond Building. It will include a management suite and conference and exhibition space and will cost about £6.5m. A new £1m lecture theatre is also on the cards for Horton D Building.

The university's director of finance Sue Kershaw said: "Our investment plan amounts to a spend of a £155 million over the next ten to 15 years. This includes investment in people, buildings and facilities. We are already well on the way to identifying two-thirds of the funding for this. This will comprise additional borrowing, sale proceeds from some off-campus properties, capital funds from the HEFCE and other funding bodies, university own internal funds and by using some of the anticipated increase in student fees."

Plans for the new buildings have now been submitted to Bradford Council.

The huge revamp is part of the university's five-year corporate strategy which includes attracting 13 per cent more students by 2009. Applications for places at the university fell by 30 per cent after the 2001 riots but by August last year admissions were up by 16 per cent and this is expected to rise again this year.