Shortlist announced: New arena for Bristol

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

The announcement follows the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) International Invited Design Competition which launched in August. Over 30 teams from across the world, expressed interest in designing the cultural venue that will be located close to Bristol Temple Meads Station and is due to open towards the end of 2017.

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 / Feilden Clegg Bradley / Buro Happold / Vanguardia

• White Arkitekter with Arup

• Wilkinson Eyre with Arup

The multi-disciplinary teams include architects and engineers who all have experience of delivering major venues in the UK or overseas. They will now work on their design proposals for the Bristol Arena which will be submitted in January 2015. A public exhibition of all five design proposals will take place in January prior to a decision being made in March.