PLANS for the Bristol Arena have taken a dramatic step forward as the winning team is announced for the 12,000 capacity venue following an international Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) design competition.

The competition panel praised the winning design team, Populous, for its unique innovative concept that allows for smaller capacity theatre style events, while quickly converting to larger configurations for sporting events, major conventions or exhibitions and up to 12,000 capacity performances.

George Ferguson, Mayor of Bristol and Past President of the RIBA said: “I am delighted with the outcome of this vital design competition. The Populous team has presented an innovative design for a horseshoe shaped arena that will allow us real flexibility for programming, for now and into the future, offering both performers and audiences an outstanding acoustic and visual experience. The new arena shone out as the best of five great designs and will sit comfortably on the ‘Arena Island’ site next to Temple Meads and the Bath Road."

"Although Bristol is one of the last cities in the UK to build an arena, this design, is an evolution of some the world’s best venues and gave the expert panel real confidence in the team’s ability to deliver a very special venue for the region.”

Nicholas Reynolds, Populous design team said: “We believe Bristol Arena will be the catalyst for the creation of a vibrant new quarter in the city. The design is flexible enough to cater for a wide variety of events and creates a range of spaces inside and out of the venue itself, for people to come together right throughout the year. Our design for Bristol Arena is unique."

More than 50,000 people viewed the five shortlisted arena designs on-line when they were revealed to the public last month and over 550 comments were given. The panel took the comments fully into consideration when scoring the designs on aesthetics and how the design fitted into the city context, however the final consideration had to be much more than external design. The teams were also judged on deliverability and affordability, the flexibility, efficiency and sustainability of the venue, the composition of the design team and meeting the requirements of the Council and the preferred operators SMG with Live Nation.

Work is due to start on the site in early 2016, for the arena to be open by the end of 2017.