Atlas Football Club has a championed history in Mexico that stretches back to 1916, when it was founded in Guadalajara. Academia Atlas, a new training ground for the team , was designed by Sordo Madaleno , a Mexico City office alongside landscape architecture firm Plantica .

The new training facility is sited between the Primavera Forest and Barranca, an important biodiverse corridor at risk of sprawling development. Sordo Madaleno said that, in light of this looming detriment, Academia Atlas treads lightly into the context. It supports professional athletes, but also young players training in Atlas FC’s academy.

The 90,000-square-foot complex deliberately uses a low-rise, modular building meant to blend in with the nearby flora and fauna species. Paulina Robles, founder of Plantica, said the landscape architecture has already “sparked genuine curiosity among users.”

“It is common to see maintenance staff being asked about the species, and athletes of all ages often stop to observe the animals within the space and comment on the scents,” Robles said.

We wanted to create an enclosure within the landscape that is highly exposed to the elements, and we wanted to blend the landscape in and around Academia Atlas to show how important planting and wildlife are in giving us a sense of belonging somewhere, Fernando Sordo Madaleno shared.

Working with the landscape is a key tenet of our work,” Sordo Madaleno added. “The territory we are commissioned in is not a blank canvas; it is history, nature, and memory layered over time. We’ve worked with Plantica to fully integrate the built and natural environments so together they create spaces that inspire, nurture, and respect their context.”

The campus’s architecture, namely its red tones echo Jalisco red-mud adobe. Red is also Atlas FC’s primary color, so the choice to use it was an obvious one. Meanwhile, the massing, materials, and textures take cues from the nearby Cerro del Topopote hills, trees, and rocks, architects noted.

The building incorporates Brise-soleil to provide shading when needed in the exterior courtyards. The plantings by Plantica are native and draught tolerant; they were located in beds inside the courtyards and on the terraces and railings across the built structure.

The vegetation enhances Academia Atlas’s sensory experience, helps with wayfinding, channel views, and amplifies the site’s aromatic properties.

Other prominent architectural features include a spiral staircase with smoothed finish that shares a tonal quality with the adobe brick construction, while contrasting it texture-wise.

Ayoyote trees, Rosemary, Mexican feathergrass, Papelillo Bursera are, Firestick, Cacti, Agaves, and scented herbs are interspersed throughout the grounds. Some of these materials are the same resources Aztec and Mayan cultures leaned upon for making instruments and ornaments, renowned for their healing properties.

Fifty native trees, including Paperbarks and Oaks, were planted at Academia Atlas, along with 260 Agaves, and more than 17,000 low vegetation specimens.

Academia Atlas was a Project of the Year finalist in AN ’s 2024 Best of Design Awards .

CONTINUE READING
RELATED ARTICLES