Red Card for Copyright

The development concept for the territory of Shinnik Stadium in Yaroslavl, prepared by PI ARENA, took second place in an open call competition. The architects proposed a unified structure combining a football arena, a hotel, and the headquarters of PSB Bank, with carefully considered usage scenarios. However, the competition was organized in such a way that the team ultimately chose to forgo the prize money in order to retain their copyright.

Written by:
Alyona Kuznetsova
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

25 May 2026

Object

Architect:

Firm:

Arena http://piarena.ru/

In March 2026, the Yaroslavl Urban Development Center, with the support of PSB Bank, held an open call competition for the redevelopment of the Shinnik Stadium site. The participants of the competition were asked to propose a new 12,000-seat stadium – half the capacity of the existing arena – a sports and wellness center with a 25-meter swimming pool, a 120-room hotel, and public spaces that would make the area attractive to city residents throughout the year. The brief also included an office and business center for PSB Bank, whose headquarters relocated from Moscow to Yaroslavl in 2025.

The winning entry was submitted by Metropolis. PI ARENA came second. However, subsequent developments led the architects to decline the prize of 4 million rubles in order to preserve their intellectual property rights.

Aleksey Orlov, ARENA Project Institute

The competition procedure raised a number of concerns. The composition of the jury was never officially disclosed, making it impossible to assess its professional qualifications. The submissions were not anonymous: all projects were presented without identification codes. No public presentations or project defenses were held. According to an official email distributed by the competition operator to the jury members, several entries – including the proposal ultimately declared the winner – were submitted after the official deadline for accepting competition materials.

In early May, after the competition results had already been announced, PI ARENA received an additional agreement on the assignment of exclusive rights to the conceptual design. Under its terms, the authors would not even be allowed to publish their own concept without the purchaser’s consent. The agreement also contained the following provision: “From the moment the exclusive rights are transferred, the Purchaser shall be entitled, independently and without the Author’s consent, to make any modifications, additions, or alterations to the Work necessary for its implementation, without any further approval by the Author”. Some time later, the Purchaser also informally requested the project’s 3D models.

Given the high level of development of the architectural concept, as well as concerns regarding the competition procedure and what we consider unreasonable demands concerning the transfer of intellectual property rights and the provision of project materials, PI ARENA officially declined the prize and retained full copyright to the project.

Football in a Historic City

The eight-hectare stadium site appears large enough to accommodate the proposed mixed-use program. Yet the design process is complicated by the irregular shape of the plot. Part of the frontage facing Truda (“Labor”) Square and Svobody (“Freedom”) Street is occupied by an office building, while the block also contains a fitness club, a commercial office center, and three sports schools. Development parameters are further constrained by the nearby television tower, the sanitary protection zone of the Aura shopping and entertainment center, and the approach path of Tunoshna Airport.

zooming — Location plan, the materials from the competition brief

Located in central Yaroslavl, the stadium is surrounded by a highly diverse urban fabric, ranging from seventeenth-century churches, military barracks, and the city’s first power station to a Soviet-era circus and a contemporary shopping mall. Football has been played on this site since the 1930s, and in the 1960s a large stadium was built for the local team, Shinnik. Despite numerous reconstructions, however, the arena never reached its moment of greatest prominence and was not selected as a venue for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Since both the city authorities and investors consider reconstruction more expensive than new construction, the existing stadium is to be demolished entirely.

A Sporting Organism

PI ARENA’s proposal brings together the sports, office, and hotel components into a single complex, with the football pitch serving as its center and heart. The result is a low-rise composition without vertical landmarks, complemented by a system of public squares and landscaped spaces that break the large site into smaller, more human-scaled urban fragments.

On the northern side, extending the axis of Truda Square, a hotel and sports-and-wellness complex with a swimming pool adjoin the stadium bowl. The buildings are connected by a bridge at the second and third-floor levels, accommodating the pool, restaurant, conference facilities, and administrative offices. The upper floors contain fifteen serviced apartments with a separate entrance and dedicated vertical circulation core. An atrium opens toward the street through a large glazed façade.

The office center occupies the eastern sector of the stadium and rises four stories above ground. The upper floors enjoy views both of Pobedy Street and of the playing field. This part of the complex also incorporates a sports and entertainment center with bowling alleys, squash courts, and dedicated e-sports facilities.

A 326-space underground parking garage frees the surface level for generous landscaping and public amenities.

Spectators enter the stadium through three main entrances, each preceded by a forecourt. A fourth forecourt serves the office center entrance from Pobedy Street, while a fifth marks the entrance to the museum, retail, and restaurant block facing Truda Square. These landscaped public spaces are designed both for everyday recreation and for citywide events such as holiday celebrations, concerts, fairs, and public skating. Seating areas are integrated beneath the entrance canopies. The paving pattern, lighting fixtures, benches, waste bins, and wayfinding elements all reinforce the architectural language of the stadium and hotel.

The White Ribbon

The element that ties the various parts of the complex into a unified whole is a system of ribbon-like bands wrapping around the façades. According to the architects, the “flowing, directional line conveys speed, trajectory, acceleration, and continuity of movement – qualities that are essential to sport”, while also “creating the impression that the building is caught in a permanent impulse, as though the architecture captures the instant of a sprint or a wave of collective spectator energy”. The ribbons express both the dynamism and the unifying nature of the game, but they also allude to the history of the arena’s owners: as the name Shinnik suggests, the football club was originally founded by the Yaroslavl Tire Factory (“Shina” meaning “tire” in Russian). From certain angles, the stadium indeed resembles a giant white tire.

The roof profile, which slopes downward toward the façade, is a response to height restrictions: 18 meters along the perimeter of the block and 24-28 meters within the interior of the site.

Monumental entrance portals, sheltered from wind and rain, prepare visitors for the spectacle while offering glimpses of the arena’s interior life through large glazed walls. The main entrances are located at level +5.100, while two additional ground-level entrances, positioned in the northern and southern parts of the building, are provided for active supporter groups. From the entrance halls, visitors proceed into the concourse, which contains restrooms, concession stands, and kiosks.

From the concourse, spectators access the covered stands through a series of canopied stalls. Each row rises 100 millimeters above the one below, ensuring unobstructed views of the pitch from every seat. A large media screen further enhances the match-day experience.

The stadium comprises four above-ground levels. In addition to facilities for athletes and competition operations, it accommodates offices, a sports hall of fame museum, retail spaces, a restaurant, and a sports and entertainment center.

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Shinnik Football Stadium

Copyright: © PI ARENA
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Shinnik Football Stadium. Ground floor plan, elevation 0.000

Copyright: © PI ARENA
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Shinnik Football Stadium. Second-floor plan, elevation +5.100
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Shinnik Football Stadium. Third-floor plan, elevation +9.600
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Shinnik Football Stadium. Fourth-floor plan, elevation +13.500

The competition organizers did not officially publish the winning proposal. A presumed version of the Metropolis concept can be viewed here.

Architect:

Firm:

Arena http://piarena.ru/

25 May 2026

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