Hollywood star Brad Pitt is involved in the planning of the

£220 million King Alfred development.

He has been visiting the Los Angeles studios of world-famous architect Frank Gehry and taking part in the design process.

He may also be a member of the team visiting Sussex in June to present a planning application to Brighton and Hove City Council.

The 40-year-old actor is on a year-long internship with Mr Gehry, who was chosen to design the building in July.

A self-proclaimed architecture fanatic, Mr Pitt has been spending his spare time working with Mr Gehry on his vision for the controversial seafront complex.

Developer Karis Holdings signed a development agreement with the council last week. Plans and models showing the positioning and scale of the scheme are expected to go on show to the public in January.

Karis managing director Josh Arghiros said: "Brad Pitt visits Frank Gehry's studios regularly. Frank has been, and is, spending a huge amount of time and effort designing so as to be ready to deliver a planning application in June next year. When Brad comes in he joins Frank and the team and takes part in some of the process. He is not a full-time member of the design team but a good friend of Frank's who has expressed a keen and personal interest in following each stage of the King Alfred development project right through to completion.

"He, like everyone else involved, has had his imagination captured by this scheme."

Eminent architect Mr Gehry is famed for designing the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles but the King Alfred is his first major project in the UK.

The final design, which will include a £30 million sports complex, public gardens and 590 flats, 40 per cent of which will be low-cost, could be based on the futuristic vision of three glass and metal towers which won the company the contract earlier this year.

Opponents dubbed the scheme the "tin can towers" but Mr Gehry preferred to call them his maidens, saying they looked like Edwardian ladies strolling along the promenade.

Brad Pitt - star of blockbusters including Fight Club and Troy - and wife Jennifer Aniston were last year rumoured to have been scouring Sussex for a property.

When the development is completed the couple could settle down in one of the 300 private flats in the development.

Deputy council leader Sue John, who chairs the King Alfred Project Board, said the council might make an exception to the no photography rule if the star were to make a presentation as part of the planning application.

She added: "We believe Frank Gehry is one of the world's greatest architects and we can understand why Brad Pitt would be impressed by him.

"We know it is going to be a huge tourist attraction and there would certainly be a great deal of interest knowing he has helped with the project."

Pitt fan Karolina Plent, 26, said: "I think it's really exciting. If he came over to help with presentations there would be women coming from all over the country to see him."