Location from Red Rising by Pierce Brown
The brutal training ground where Gold youth are sorted into houses and forced to wage war on each other. Survivors earn the Peerless Scarred — and the scars that come with it.
The Institute is where the Society manufactures its ruling class. Every year, the brightest Gold children — already genetically engineered, already trained since birth — are dumped into a constructed wilderness and told to conquer each other. The Passage comes first: each student must kill or be killed by a partner to prove they have the ruthlessness to lead. Then the war games begin. Houses named for Roman gods fight for territory, resources, and dominance. The Proctors watch from above, occasionally intervening to keep things interesting. It is Lord of the Flies with razor-wielding demigods. Darrow entered the Institute as Darrow au Andromedus, a carved Red wearing a Gold's skin, and emerged as something neither Red nor Gold — something new. He won by doing what no Gold would: treating his enemies with mercy, building loyalty instead of demanding it, and playing a game the Proctors had never seen before. The Institute made him Peerless Scarred. It also showed him exactly how the Society turns children into monsters.
A massive enclosed environment on Mars simulating a medieval world — rolling hills, forests, rivers, and castles, all artificial and all monitored. Each House begins in a small fortress. The landscape is designed to be beautiful and lethal in equal measure. Cameras are everywhere, though the students learn to forget them.
Also known as: The Institute, the war games, Gold training ground