Oxford University has submitted a radically revised master plan to create a £500m campus on the Radcliffe Infirmary site.

Much of the large hospital site between Woodstock Road and Walton Street has now been reduced to rubble.

And as some of the remaining large buildings came crashing down this week, the university confirmed that its original plans exhibited last year have been extensively redrawn.

Proposals for a sweeping boulevard running across the site from the Radcliffe Observatory to the Oxford University Press Building have been dropped, with architects deciding smaller streets will be more in keeping with central Oxford.

It is now proposed that almost 50 per cent of the site space, including a two-floor library will be provided underground. The whole 10.5-acre site will be accessible to the public during normal university hours, with the university's new Radcliffe Observatory Quarter crossed by two routes linking Walton Street and Woodstock Road.

Mike Wigg, university head of capital projects, said a large Mathematics Institute, one of the most significant structures in the centre of the site, would be one of the first buildings to be constructed, along with a new humanities headquarters.

Demolition work and clearance work, which will have taken nine months, should be completed by next spring with the first buildings expected to open in late 2011 or 2012.

It was envisaged that the only buildings that the only buildings to be retained would be the main Radcliffe Infirmary building, facing the Woodstock Road and St Luke's Chapel.

But university pro-vice chancellor Prof Anthony Monaco said that the hospital's 19th-century Grade II listed outpatients' building on the Woodstock Road is now also to be retained.

He said the new buildings would be varied, with a five-storey block in the centre of the site to be slightly above the Carfax Tower dictum level of 79.3 m. Buildings require specific approval to exceed that height in the city centre.

On the southern edge of the site, student accommodation will be provided for Somerville College.

Under the sale agreement, the university will also build a purpose-built health centre for the Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust, accessed from Walton Street.

The development of the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter represents one of the biggest investments in the university's history.

Much of its funding will come from the appeal announced by the university in May to raise at least £1.25bn, the largest launched by a European university.

At the launch, hosted by famous university alumni including Michael Palin, Richard Dawkins and Sir Roger Bannister, it was announced that donations totally £575m had already been made.

The new master plan has been submitted to Oxford City Council and is expected to go to the strategic development control committee in November.

The original master plan was the subject of a major consultation 18 months ago. The university said it regarded the Radcliffe Infirmary site as the last substantial area of land close to the city centre that it could develop, that would operate as an integrated campus, developed in phases, to meet the university's needs for space over the next 20 years.