Anticipation is rising around the grounds of the UK's University of Manchester as the redevelopment of its prestigious Whitworth Art Gallery nears completion.

The gallery is well known for its positioning in beautiful parkland, and the design for the new-look 55,000-piece gallery puts the relationship between gallery and surrounds at its centre.

Slated to re-open in Q3 2014, the £15m ($25.5m, €19m) project was paid for by a major grant (£8.5m) from the Heritage Lottery Fund, alongside funding from the university and other donors. The architect, McInnes Usher McKnight Architects (MUMA), was selected in 2009, after beating off 130 other entrants to win a RIBA competition.

MUMA’s design is for a double-wing extension and the formation of a new entrance, a “café in the trees” and Art Garden and an environmentally sustainable collection storage space. With a specially designed British brick, stainless steel and glass motif, MUMA aims to balance the modern renovations with the historic 19th-century original building.

The environment is key to the character of the Whitworth, and the extensive use of glass will marry the building with the park, while award-winning garden designer Sarah Price has been commissioned to work on the Art Garden.

“The brief offered a unique opportunity to capture the qualities of the surrounding landscape,” said MUMA’s Stuart McKnight. “The extension not only connects with the park, creating an outdoor gallery – an Art garden – it also acts as a pressure relief, allowing us to reconfigure and rationalise the existing building. In this way, whilst we are extending the building by one-third, we are actually doubling the area available to the public.”