Non-league side Forest Green Rovers has picked a design by Zaha Hadid Architects for the team’s new 5,000-seat stadium.

The practice’s winning proposal for the structure is “almost entirely made of wood” to meet a zero-carbon/carbon-negative brief from green energy firm Ecotricity, the National League club’s majority shareholder.

Its design trumped a rival bid from Glenn Howells Architects after an international competition whittled a shortlist of nine down to the two finalists.

Earlier this year, Howells won the RIBA South West Award for the Gloucester Services “eco service station” a few miles north of the proposed stadium site, which is adjacent to the M5 motorway west of Stroud.

The stadium is earmarked as the centrepiece of a proposed 40ha Eco Park, to be split 50:50 between sports and sports-science use and green technology.

Zaha Hadid Architects director Jim Heverin said the stadium’s “continuous spectator bowl” would maximise matchday atmosphere and provide all seats with clear sightlines to the pitch.

“Forest Green Rovers’ new stadium and Eco Park aims to be carbon neutral or carbon negative , including measures such as the provision of on-site renewable energy generation,” he said.

“The buildings on the site, and their embodied energy, play a substantial role in achieving this ambitious target and demonstrate sustainable architecture can be dynamic and beautiful.”

Ecotricity founder and Forest Green Rovers chairman Dale Vince said the standout feature of the winning stadium was that it was “going to be almost entirely made of wood” which he said would be a world-first.

“We’re thrilled with the concept and the amount of thought Zaha Hadid put into their design – their experience of stadia design and their ability to put environmental issues at the heart of what they do really stood out,” he said.

“They took a really challenging brief, ran with it, and have given us an iconic and original new stadium.

“The importance of using wood is not only that it’s a naturally occurring material, it has very low carbon content – about as low as it gets for a building material. It’s why our new stadium will have the lowest carbon content of any stadium in the world.”

Vince also praised the Glenn Howells runner-up design as “exceptional” and pledged to work with the practice on future projects.

Forest Green was founded in 1889 and is the longest serving member of the National League – the fifth highest of the English football league.