At his annual State of the City address, the Mayor of Bristol, George Ferguson, has announced the shortlist of five experienced design teams for the 12,000 capacity Bristol Arena.

The announcement comes after the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) International Invited Design Competition which launched in August. More than 30 teams from throughout the world expressed an interest in designing the cultural venue that will be situated near to Bristol Temple Meads Station and is due to open towards the end of next year.

The five shortlisted multi-disciplinary design teams (in alphabetical order) are:

Grimshaw, MANICA Architecture, Thornton Tomasetti, M-E Engineers and Neil Woodger Acoustics

IDOM (in collaboration with Foreman Roberts and Nagata Acoustics)

Populous Arena Team (Populous / Feilden Clegg Bradley / Buro Happold / Vanguardia)

White Arkitekter with Arup and Sandy Brown Acoustic Consultant

Wilkinson Eyre with Arup

The multi-disciplinary teams are made up of architects and engineers who have all got experience of delivering major venues both in the UK and overseas. They will now work on their design proposals for the Bristol Arena.  A public exhibition of all five design proposals will take place in January before a decision is made in March.

Mayor George Ferguson said:

“We are at a really exciting stage in the development of Bristol’s long awaited arena.  I am delighted with the level of interest that we have had to the RIBA design competition.

“We now have five very capable and talented design teams with a wealth of experience between them drawing up proposals for an arena that will contribute to the regeneration of the Bristol Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone and provide one of the very best experiences for audiences and major acts. These are really very important milestones and take us several steps closer to the delivery of this major venue for the city region.”