South Campus will spread south across the Saclay plateau, between the École polytechnique and the CEA (Atomic and Alternative Energy Commission) designed by Auguste Perret in 1958. The challenge lies in moving past the current stage of an area made up of industrial-university activities dotted with large closed off access points, to an authentic neighborhood containing residents, shared facilities, and businesses. By 2025, this emblematic complex will welcome 20,000 teacher-researchers, 30,000 students, 20,000 in staff, and around 15,000 residents.

The scale here is unusual, imposed by the placement of the existing establishments across a wide and dispersed area. South Campus spreads across seven kilometers (equivalent to the distance from the Louvre to the outer Parisian La Défense district), and over six hundred hectares. Only the organization of the landscape in an archipelago allows for the proper composition of such a vast space. Nine compact neighborhoods are thus gathered together in the interior of a “park-campus”. All of which are formed beginning from the existing built-up areas. The expansion of the wooded valleys and hillside landscape, along with the setting up of an extensive system of parks and public spaces, provides the physical setting necessary for the smooth functioning of the archipelago.

Particular attention is given to the creation of a soft traffic network that is linked, readable, secure, and that facilitates nearby, shorter movement. With each neighborhood being itself of significant dimension, they are further divided into inhabited areas determined within the radius of a public transport stop, each of a scale traversable by foot or bicycle.

The planning and development of the city-campus will not put into direct contact the new neighborhoods with the large agricultural expanses. A vast intermediary space, the edge, with a surface area comparable to the future constructed neighborhoods themselves, is planned for with a number of different functions. It will welcome shared ecological services (humid areas, management of biodiversity), technical and sporting facilities, recreational spaces, gardens, orchards, meadows, plant nurseries, agricultural activities (market gardening), and areas of land dedicated to agronomical research.

“The chain of major places,” as defined by the urbanists Xaveer de Geyter and Floris Alkemade, is an ensemble of public spaces is in some way the main support for the campus, around which different forms of urbanization can develop. The major places determine the centers of activity, being coupled with transport infrastructure. The landscape of the major places is a collection of fundamental elements whose dimensions, between one and two kilometers, and whose orientations correspond to the scale of the various compact neighborhoods. They are surrounded by a considerable plant presence that places them in a significant manner within their landscape and built context. They function as invariable elements of stability and positioning, with dimensions larger than the most imposing buildings.