Adidas World of Sports New Campus Expansion | LOLA landscape architects

Welcome to the Adidas World of Sports！The Adidas Group headquarters is located in Herzogenaurach, Germany. As a globally renowned sports brand, Adidas is constantly dedicated to the future of sports and fashion. In this unique campus, the landscape is more than just a visual delight; it is a vital catalyst for fostering a passion for exercise and enhancing public health.

LOLA Landscape Architects designed and realized the new 14.000 m2 campus expansion of the Adidas headquarters in Germany. Bright star-shaped public spaces and a swirling new lake provide the Adidas World-of-Sports with a fresh and future-oriented identity. The landscape design forms a strong visual composition with the crisp facades of the new buildings that have landed on this former military airbase.

The main ingredients of the design are four individual stars that link the entire campus together. These twelve-meter-wide brightly colored “stars” act as squares. They are the connecting fabric in the landscape and form the intersection of where Adidas employees meet and many activities take place.

Immersion in the sports culture of Adidas starts for all visitors on the red star with the Walk-of-Fame with prominent foot and handprints of, among others, Zinedine Zidane and Stan Smith, and a bronze statue of founder Adi Dassler. At one of the ends, LOLA integrated a bicycle shelter into the design.

On and around the stars different types of programs are placed that refer to the diversity of sports that Adidas is known for. Including a multi-pitch for football, rugby, and hockey games, a skate park, and trampolines where employees can blow off steam during a break or on their way to meetings.

LOLA’s lake is the other crucial element in the landscape. Closing the space between the new campus buildings Halftime (COBE architects) and ARENA (Behnisch architects), the lake enhances the views and reflects the architecture, and trees and brings lightness.

The lake visually links the public and private parts of the campus in one view, rendering a fence obsolete and reinforcing the open perspective of Adidas with its headquarters. In addition, it provides the campus lawns and trees with water in dry spells and it buffers the roof and surface runoff in rainy seasons – while also cooling the building Halftime.

Adidas landscape of the future

A Campus is both a field as well as a city. The ancient Roman Campo Marzio is a classic example of a field gradually morphing into the city fabric. Similarly, the Adidas campus will develop in time, like an array of buildings, gardens, landscapes, and monuments of various generations that defined Adidas at that given time.

The campus landscape is the gathering place of the employees of the Adidas Group; the quintessence of the Adidas brand experience is what athletes, co-workers, media, and retailers visit the campus for – to get inspired and awed by what Adidas is developing, testing, and performing. The edgy, clear, and colorful design that is so characteristic of Adidas is embedded in all lines and shapes on campus. It guides visitors in a clear way along the various buildings – like an English landscape garden of the 21st century. This campus is Adidas without the logo being present, and that is exactly what our client intended: you are in the Adidas landscape of the future.

Within the masterplan of headquarters, it is foreseen that from 2020 and beyond the next steps will be taken for the older part of the Adidas campus to be transformed with the addition of 2 more stars and various new green and leisure features.