Design Competition Panel Praises Innovative Winning Design For New Bristol Arena

Plans for the Bristol Arena have taken a sizable leap 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 victorious team are international arena and stadium design specialists, Populous, together with BuroHappold Engineering and the award winning Bath based practices Feilden Clegg Bradley Architects. Populous designed the London Olympic Stadium as well as O2 Arenas in London, Berlin and Dublin, and the recently completed Leeds Arena.

The panel praised the winning design team for their unique and innovative concept that caters for smaller capacity theatre style events, as well as being able to quickly convert to larger configurations for larger events such as sporting events, major exhibitions or conventions and up to 12,000 capacity performances.

George Ferguson, Mayor of Bristol and a former 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. I have been determined that we achieve the best arena yet and the commitment towards achieving a BREEAM Excellent environmental rating adds to Bristol’s reputation as European Green Capital.

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. It delivers a world-class live concert venue for 12,000 fans, and with seamless conversion the atmosphere and intimacy of a 4,000 seat amphitheatre. The adaptive façade will provide the canvas, which defines the identity of the building within the Bristol skyline, as it transitions between an ephemeral form by day, to a dynamic event backdrop by night.”

Music promoter and competition panel member,
Harvey Goldsmith CBE said:
 “Bristol needs a fully integrated, multi use and flexible arena. The winning team have presented a concept that fits the criteria. They understood how an arena works not only from the public’s point of view, but also from the promoter and artist stand point. I think their understanding of the site combined with their knowledge of building arenas made it easy for us to choose this team as the winners. I believe that the new Bristol Arena will rank amongst the best in the UK.”

RIBA advisor and panel member Lynne Sullivan said:
“We are convinced that as worthy winners of this competition the Populous team can advance the art of arena design as well as delivering  the centrepiece of Bristol’s Arena Island regeneration. Applying flexibility and creativity to the Arena brief, along with the wider and longer-term thinking needed for the success of Bristol’s new urban quarter, is a challenge which the judges are confident this team can meet. We were impressed by the quality of all the shortlisted designs, but the Populous team gave us a transformative vision of a place which will be a major asset for the city."

More than 50,000 people viewed the shortlisted arena designs online when they were announced to the public last month and more than 550 comments were given. Comments were fully taken into consideration by the panel when they scored the designs on aesthetics and how the design fitted into the city context, however the final consideration had to be far greater than external design. The teams were also judged on affordability and deliverability, the flexibility, sustainability and efficiency of the venue, the composition of the design team and meeting the requirements of the Council and the preferred operators SMG with Live Nation.

The winning proposal was considered by the panel to have an excellent response to the operator’s requirements and acoustics, good sustainability credentials with a commitment towards achieving a BREEAM excellent rating, a good level of detail to support their cost estimate and a strong team that will bring considerable experience to the project.

The arena project team will now work with Populous and the other team members on the detailed design that will be submitted for planning approval in the summer.

The 12,000 seater, £90 million arena is planned to be located on the former diesel depot site next to Bristol Temple Meads railway station. The project, with funding from Bristol City Council and the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership through its Economic Development Fund is estimated to break even within ten years and shall bring some of the greatest events and acts as well as millions of pounds of economic growth to the region.