University of Toulouse
Jean Jaurès

Developed with philosopher Michel Serres to resemble the digital networks that are today a driving force in education, teaching and everyday life, the university’s architecture is a network of connections in three dimensions between teaching staff, students and researchers, and between production, dissemination and sharing of knowledge. This network concept, initiated by Candilis, and the precursor of the “capable space” that adapts itself to every configuration and new development in teaching methods, also makes the university a factor in Mirail’s urban cohesion.

A huge covered mall runs across the entire project and constitutes both a link between Mirail’s north and south districts and the university’s lively social heart with cafés, exercise facilities and community spaces. The university’s openness towards the district of Mirail, the welcome given to students, and the affirmation of the university’s identity as a symbol of knowledge and sharing: all these are expressed by an immense canopy 200 m in width. This marks the entrance to the grounds.

The façades, with a design inspired by vegetation, references Toulouse’s gothic themes as well as evoking the great European and American universities. Integrated into a large linear park and laid out on the theme of the stages of knowledge, the university is committed to an ambitious environmental approach which places the emphasis on light and on acoustic, thermal and ergonomic comfort.

Thus, with its architecture and organisational strategy, the project has the ambition of becoming, for Toulouse and its suburbs, a cradle of urbanity and of knowledge on a European scale.