"They have managed to combine the requirement of a World Championship stadium with a facility that will be a long lasting and really effective legacy for our sport."
The Lee Valley National Athletics Centre in north London is also set to cost less than initially envisaged.
But Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Chris Smith has dismissed suggestions that the new stadium is to be built on a shoestring budget.
The cost of the stadium was initially expected to be around £95m but is now expected to fall in the region of £83-87m.
Smith believes the £15m shortfall is a "meetable target" but the government have no intention of helping meet the capital costs of building the "imaginative and innovative state-of-the-art arena".
"This stadium is the best thing to happen to athletics in the UK for a generation," he added of the design for the venue that will host the 2005 World Championships in London.
David Moorcroft, the chief executive of UK Athletics, also praised the FaulkerBrowns design team.
"They have managed to combine the requirement of a World Championship stadium with a facility that will be a long lasting and really effective legacy for our sport."
The centre will comprise an athletics stadium and a High Performance Centre including a 200m indoor track and throw fields.
The indoor and outdoor stadiums will be joined by walkways and the plans show a centre with plenty of space over the 130-acre site.
After hosting the 2005 World Championships the capacity will be reduced by over 50% to 20,000.
And after modification the centre will become the new national home for track and field, an integral part of the English Institute for Sport and will also be available for use by the local community.
The FaulknerBrowns consortium, who have a portfolio that includes the National Cycling Velodrome in Manchester, won the commission for the design of the arena in the Lee Valley Regional Park.
FaulknerBrowns is one of the largest architectural practices in Europe specialising in sports architecture and the consortium includes TTH architects, Anthony Hunt Associates and BDP.
Building work at the Picketts Lock site is due for completion 12 months before the start of the 2005 World Championships.
It was chosen after an aborted attempt to add an athletics track to the new national football stadium under development only a few miles away at Wembley.
The Lee Valley site also beat off competition from a shortlist that included Twickenham, Crystal Palace and Hillingdon.