The Training Center is a skyscraper located in the center of the Capitol where the tributes live and train in preparation for the Hunger Games. Their mentor, escort, stylist, and prep team stay with them during this time. They are also assigned Avoxes to act as servants to the tributes and their entourages.
Training Center
Peeta at the camouflage station.
The Training Center building from the Catching Fire trailer.
The tributes and their teams stay in a tower connected to the Training Center with each district inhabiting a separate floor. The tower has an open roof that includes a garden which provides an excellent view of the Capitol and is enclosed by a force field to thwart any attempt at suicide. It can be assumed that the Training Center is one of the tallest buildings in the Capitol.
Katniss at the snares station.
An underground gymnasium filled with training stations and obstacle courses is where the tributes prepare and practice for the challenges in the arena. The training stations spaced throughout the center are based on different skills that may be useful in the arena, which includes knot tying, identifying edible plants and insects, camouflage, and practicing with weapons. Experts are placed at each station to instruct and serve as training partners to the tributes, as they are forbidden to fight each other before the Games begin. However, Cato and the District 6 male fought over a knife before the 74th Hunger Games (film).
The clothing each tribute wears is determined by their stylist, although each has a cloth square with their district number pinned to their shirt. In the film, the tributes wear identical training uniforms distinguished by their respective district number.
Routine
Tributes in line for an obligatory gauntlet.
Tributes attend training three days in a row. It starts at 10:00 each morning, though almost all the tributes arrived early during the 74th Hunger Games, and some of the tributes in the 75th Hunger Games didn't even show up to training at all. Once they are all assembled, Atala explains the different centers. The tributes are told not to ignore survival skills because they are just as important as the weapon stations. Katniss likes the unpopular snare section, and learns a snare that can leave a human hanging from one foot. The trainees are reminded that they cannot fight with each other before the Games, but if they want to spar, they can request to practice with a trainer. The Career tributes typically go directly to the stations with the most deadly weapons when training starts in an attempt to intimidate the other tributes. Afterwards, all the tributes eat lunch together in a dining room attached to the gym. Alliances are often formed during this time after the tributes have seen each other's abilities in training and have a chance to talk.
Private sessions
Peeta tells Katniss to shoot straight in her private session with the Gamemakers.
After a period of time, the tributes show the Gamemakers what they are capable of, choosing a particular skill they excel at, and are scored from 1 to 12, 1 being very low and 12 being almost impossible to achieve. Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark both received a score of 12 as a result of their actions in the 74th Hunger Games and during their private sessions. However, they didn't necessarily earn this 12, as it was deliberately given to them so that the other tributes would target them.
Seneca Crane after Katniss shoots an arrow through the apple.
Katniss always surprised the Gamemakers in her private sessions. In the 74th Hunger Games, she shot an arrow directly at their table, skewering an apple in the mouth of a roasted pig that had been brought in for them, and then walked out without being dismissed. For the 75th Hunger Games, she created an effigy of Seneca Crane, wrote his name on it with berry juice, and hung it by a noose. Peeta painted a picture of how Rue looked after Katniss covered her in flowers. Their odds of winning are then shown in the morning line odds. Both got perfect scores of 12.
Apartments
The Training Center apartments are tall white buildings located behind the President's Mansion and Training Center where the tributes participating in the Hunger Games are given five star luxury accommodations and the best meals during their preparations. Along with their team, each of the twelve pairs stays on a floor corresponding with the respective number of their district. They also receive their training scores from their private training sessions with the Gamemakers while housed here.
Inhabitants
Living with the tributes are their mentor and their escort. Visitors such as the tributes' stylists are also welcome into the apartment.
Appearances
The District 12 team eating in the Penthouse.
Every year, the training center apartments serve as the residence of those participating in the Games.
In The Hunger Games, District 12 tributes Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark are assigned an apartment for the 74th Hunger Games according to their district. In The Hunger Games film, Effie Trinket presents the Penthouse to Katniss and Peeta (to which she implies that the higher numbered districts get the better rooms), where they will reside for the duration of the Games. It is also where the team eats their meals and discusses strategies for the upcoming Games. On a television set mounted on a wall, all of the tributes' training scores are released after their private training sessions.
In Catching Fire, for the 75th Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta are given the same apartment as the year before.
After Katniss shoots President Coin in Mockingjay, she is taken back to her old Training Center apartment, blindfolded and handcuffed. She remains there until Haymitch comes to get her and tells her that her trial is over, and she is going home.
Avoxes
Avoxes also live with the inhabitants. Their sole duty is to serve the residents and the guests of the Capitol as well as tend to every person's needs. Any other kind of communication, however, is forbidden for many reasons. An avox is often a citizen of any district within Panem, including the Capitol, that has violated and committed an offense, little or big, against the laws of Panem and transferred to the custody of the Capitol. The punishment for the crime is cutting out their tongues so that they are unable to speak.
In Catching Fire, one of Katniss' and Peeta's avoxes is Darius, an ex-Peacekeeper for District 12 who was turned into an avox for his earlier interfering with Gale's flogging by Romulus Thread. Katniss believes that he had been assigned to them on purpose to unnerve her.
Katniss mentions that she recognizes her female avox during the 74th Hunger Games, from when she and Gale Hawthorne were hunting. They had previously witnessed her captured from a distance while safely hidden in the woods. Katniss admits to feeling guilty about not attempting to save her, as she had been seen by the girl during her capture. In Mockingjay, Peeta announces that her name is Lavinia.
Film portrayal
The Hunger Games: The building appears to not be as tall as depicted in the book and nowhere near as large and in contrast to the movie, the building is also used for other purposes than just housing tributes. Among other aspects, the building also includes a balcony above the City Circle in which President Snow makes his annual speech standing alongside other government officials.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: The building appears much taller and accurate to the depiction in the novel. Effie explains that renovations were put in place shortly after the 74th Hunger Games, which can serve as an explanation for why the building appears differently than in the first.