The growth of the Parisian metropolis has for a long time been thought of and organized as the gradual extension of a sole center, the city of Paris. The Paris-Saclay project is emblematic of the transition to a more polycentric vision of urban conglomeration. This vision is that of the Greater Paris project, which seeks to link and structure together coherently the larger hubs of activity, gradually going beyond the old Paris to suburbs pattern. This vision also relates to the Greater Paris metro project, which extends and completes the public transport network of the wider Ile-de-France region, connecting the different outlying hubs together as well as to the airports, and making certain urban centers that are today poorly serviced more accessible.

The Saclay plateau brings together, a few kilometers from Paris, the ingredients necessary for becoming an international research and innovation center. Historically fragmented by the piecemeal setting up of various establishments, territorial unity is far from obvious. Though the creation of a unifying landscape appears as one of the principal means for organizing such a vast site, only its integration into the geography can give it relevance.

Being the principal open space in the southwest of the Parisian region, the plateau territory develops in the archipelago form, with pockets of intensity separated by empty spaces. Attempting to fill in the existing lacunary system in order to bring about a densely built-up area would render the territory commonplace and disfigure it. We prefer rather to clearly assert its identity on the perimeter, by respecting its empty spaces given over to agriculture, highlighting its wooded boundaries, and intensifying its existing urban pockets.

Our proposal aims at the development of an “amplified geography” through the completion of already present strong elements: extending and thickening the wooded hillsides and valleys that run into the heart of the plateau. An amplified geography that will welcome roads of all kinds, new infrastructure elements, as well as water management systems. With the identifiable territorial framework strengthened in this way, it comes to constitute a powerful support for the overall servicing of the site.

The landscape layout will make room for “campus-parks”. These urbanized, identifiable, and interconnected elements will be joined to the principal hubs of the scientific cluster. Supported by the amplified geography, these parks are connected by organized transport, and cleaned by an integrated hydraulic system. They are part of campus neighborhoods more or less constructed which combine the urban intensity necessary for exchange, with a significant quality landscape.

The geographical anchoring of the cluster to its plateau scale also affects the planning and development of each campus-park. In shaking free of the existing logic of state-owned lands, the landscape is made up of a geography of institutions in which the interstitial spaces are as important as the objects themselves. A progressive and continuous gradation is established, running from the “artificial” landscape at the heart of the campus to the naturalistic landscape of amplified geography.

The image of the cluster becomes stronger and more pronounced. A unity of sense is introduced, with the inhabited campus-parks brought together and integrated within the geography. The cluster is therefore not another city, but a unique organization, a hierarchical and united archipelago of campus-parks, linked both to one another as well as to the developed valleys. The relationship to the larger scale of the project meanwhile informs all areas of research, from the thirty-five thousand hectares that mark the limits of the public premises, to the two hundred and fifty hectares that make up South Campus.