red brick volumes & voids weave sordo madaleno's football campus in mexico

academia atlas is the new home for atlas fc in mexico

Sordo Madaleno’s Academia Atlas in Guadalajara bridges sports infrastructure and community-building. As the new home for Atlas FC, one of Mexico’s most long-standing football clubs, it is conceived as a collegiate-style campus featuring a training ground, six professional fields, clubhouses, and applied sports science facilities. Across these spaces, the project seeks to connect the country’s youth and foster talent, particularly targeting those from underprivileged backgrounds.

The Mexico City- and London-based practice’s design concept experiments with conventional sports architecture typologies, adopting a fluid, modular system based on a structural grid. Open-air voids punctuate the monochromatic red campus, intertwining with enclosed and semi-exposed pockets of space framed with elemental columns and beams. This configuration optimizes materials while ensuring flexibility in programming, allowing the brick and concrete buildings to evolve with the changing needs of the club.

all images by Edmund Sumner

sordo madaleno shapes an adaptable, interconnected campus

Academia Atlas spans seven hectares, developed in collaboration with Atlas FC and Orlegi Sports. Within its rectangular footprint, the complex integrates shaded passageways, intimate courtyards, and green spaces that emulate the feel of a small town square. The team at Sordo Madaleno has built these interstitial spaces from locally sourced materials and traditional construction techniques to foster movement and interaction across various programs. Between these volumes and voids, sculptural external staircases further reinforce a sense of fluidity and connectivity, complemented by the reticulated roof that acts as a brise-soleil. This element provides both shade and light while maintaining visual permeability in the building’s more densely constructed zones.

The western facade houses a spectator seating area that plays multiple roles. When unoccupied, it is a quiet recreation space; during matches, it comes to life as visiting families of players and football enthusiasts fill the stepped seats during matches. This duality ensures that the facility remains active even outside of official games, reinforcing its role as a community hub in Guadalajara. For Orlegi Sports Chairman Alejandro Irarragorri Gutiérrez, Academia Atlas represents a long-term vision for accessibility in elite football, beginning with creating appropriate facilities. ‘The project has also been conceived by us together with Sordo Madaleno to create jobs in Jalisco through local procurement processes while giving the region an important landmark promoting the role of sport in society,’ they note.

Sordo Madaleno completes Academia Atlas

the monochrome red scheme nods to the football club’s identity

Sordo Madaleno’s material choices for Academia Atlas are deeply tied to the region’s identity, with the red color scheme defining its character by referencing both the football team’s identity and traditional Mexican brickwork. Pigmented concrete, cast on-site, forms the primary structure, while precast concrete slabs were chosen to expedite assembly. Custom-designed red bricks, tailored for proportion, color, and structural efficiency, also work to make the construction process more efficient by minimizing waste and maintaining strong visual cohesion.

Alongside the architectural concept treating the site as an extension of its surroundings, the landscape strategy also consciously accounts for natural elements for environmental impact. The design team incorporates endemic species, which ensures year-round resilience with minimal maintenance and water consumption. Meanwhile, vegetation is planted so that it can climb structural elements, imbuing the site with a sense of permanence despite its relatively unmarked setting. ‘We wanted to create an enclosure within a vast flat landscape that is highly exposed to the elements, and we wanted to bring green areas inside Academia Atlas to show how important planting and wildlife are in giving us a sense of belonging somewhere,’ notes architect Fernando Sordo Madaleno.

the new home for Atlas FC, one of Mexico’s most long-standing football clubs