One of the obvious benefits of the World Architecture Festival (WAF) is the opportunity to meet designers from across the globe; to see what is happening at different design frontiers in faraway regions. In the 2024 edition of WAF, hosted in Singapore, I was fortunate enough to speak with Fernanda Patiño, Interior Design Senior Director at Sordo Madaleno. Founded in 1937, the practice is one of Mexico’s most notable.

Given the Australian fixation with sport and the corresponding architectural typology of the modern ‘high-performance’ facility – we note that Australian practices themselves have had a significant presence with sport at WAF: Cox Architecture’s Allianz Stadium and Grimshaw’s Parramatta Aquatic Centre, for example – here was a golden chance to see an example from the Americas. In Zapopan, Jalisco, Sordo Madaleno has completed Academia Atlas, a new home for one of Mexico’s oldest football clubs, the Guadalajara-based Atlas FC.

Whee modern professional sport can often be a closed-off, elite world of single-use facilities, Academia Atlas has been designed, refreshingly, with multiple community functions in mind. The building serves six professional football fields and includes clubhouses, applied sport science facilities and administrative offices. Meanwhile, a key aim of the project is to offer accommodation and resources to young players from less privileged backgrounds.

The design itself is less spartan barracks, more miniature green village. The structure comprises 8300 square metres set in a highly regular grid plan, which is then broken up and punctuated with open-air voids. The result is a differentiated ground space of street-like passages, intimate courtyards and small garden squares. As a whole, Academia Atlas centres nature and the outdoors with highly porous inside-outside spaces.

The grid plan, while allowing for modular construction, makes for an interesting dialogue with the surrounding mountainous landscape viewed in the distance. The construction itself uses locally sourced materials, whose monochromatic red notably references traditional Mexican brick. The pigmented concrete structure was cast on-site, while the concrete floor pre-slabs were pre-cast. With waste reduction in mind, the red bricks were designed especially for the building in terms of proportion, measures, colour and structural function.

“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,” says Fernando Sordo Madaleno.

Related: Sydney Football Stadium by Cox Architecture

Landscape design is indeed another central aspect of the project. It focuses on endemic species, with a view to thriving across seasons as well as being low-maintenance and achieving low water consumption.

Finally, the spectator seating area provides a totally different space, though again one with multiple functions. Running along the western façade, it traverses indoors and outdoors as well as being at times a quiet, contemplative space. For matches, of course, it transforms into a focal point of community use filled with noise and vibrancy.

The practice worked with Atlas FC and Orlegi Sports to realise the project. Alejandro Irarragorri Gutiérrez, Orlegi Sports Chairman, concludes: “Academia Atlas is about creating the right environment and facilities for the future development of young players making entry into elite football more widely accessible in Mexico. 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.”

Sordo Madaleno
sordomadaleno.com

Photography
Edmund Sumner

Next up: Plus Architecture on the Brisbane Olympics