The Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium in Al Ain has been shortlisted for the World Building of the Year award by the World Architecture Festival. The Stadium, which was formally opened in May last year with a friendly match between home-side Al Ain FC and Manchester City FC, has been nominated in the sport category for completed buildings.

It is a 25,000-seat stadium created by London-based Pattern Architects, which was founded in 2009. It was designed for its desert climate, with an outer skin of thousands of individually shaped pieces resembling a palm trunk that naturally cools the stadium. It has already won an award at the World Stadium Congress awards in Qatar last month.

“We are obviously delighted,” said the Pattern Architects director Lindsay Johnston. “HBZ is the young practice’s first completed building, and we have managed to get onto the shortlist with the world’s leading architecture practices. We are also proud to have helped to achieve this for the UAE.”

Pattern Architects also designed the National Gymnastics Arena being used at the European Games 2015 in Baku, Azerbaijan, and in April it was announced as the designer for Al Rayyan stadium the is due to be used during the 2020 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.