La Cité Internationale Université De Toulouse / TAA Toulouse

Architect: TAA Toulouse
Area: 12,863 m²
Year: 2023
Photography: Roland Halbe, Sofiane Bensizera
Lead Architect: Marinell Van Wyk
Assistant Architects: Madalina Spiridon, Silvia Mulas
Associated Architects: Atelier Méridional Joël Nissou
Interior Design: Marco & BAERTICH
Landscape Design: ATP
BET: OTEIS, GCC, Demathieu & Bard
Client: La Cité Jardins for the Federal University of Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées
City: Toulouse
Country: France

Cité Internationale Université de Toulouse, a university housing and commercial development by TAA Toulouse in Toulouse, introduces 383 residential units and public-facing programs for the international scientific community. Completed in 2023, the project restores the historic early 20th-century “H Building” by Joseph Thillet, originally financed through Paul Sabatier’s Nobel Prize, and incorporates two new volumes into the dense urban fabric. A pedestrian corridor connects Busca and Saint-Michel, opening long-hidden heritage structures to the public and establishing a shared ground level that integrates academic life with the neighborhood.

One of my favorite projects is the Cité Internationale Université de Toulouse. It offers housing for international PhD students and visiting researchers, alongside coworking spaces, a 200-person conference hall, a restaurant, amenities, and inviting public spaces. Located on the historical grounds of Paul Sabatier’s 1913 laboratory, the project restores and reveals this heritage, creating a public promenade that reconnects the urban fabric and celebrates Toulouse’s scientific legacy.
Interview with Marinell Van Wyk of Taillandier Architectes Associés – TAA

La cité internationale université de toulouse / taa toulouse

Cité Internationale Université de Toulouse addresses the complexity of revealing and recontextualizing a site layered with academic and architectural significance in the heart of Toulouse. While the project centers on the preservation of the “H Building,” it also brings attention to lesser-known but historically valuable structures, including the chapel of the Notre-Dame school, the bell tower and façades of the La Présentation residence, and the elevations along Rue des Trente-Six Ponts. These elements, long obscured within a fragmented urban setting and often deteriorated, are repositioned within a larger spatial composition. The project uses the unbuilt future redevelopment of Grande Rue Saint-Michel as an opportunity to reconnect these fragments and give them renewed visibility and civic relevance.

The intervention reactivates a former university enclave that had become spatially and visually isolated from its surroundings. The “H Building,” designed by Joseph Thillet and completed in 1916 using funds awarded to Paul Sabatier, had originally housed Toulouse’s first dedicated research laboratories. Although it was intended for academic use, it served as a military hospital during World War I and only began functioning as a scientific facility in 1919. The building’s significance remained largely unnoticed, despite its contribution to the city’s scientific legacy. Reintegrating this structure into a coherent urban scheme provided the foundation for the project’s approach.

The design strategy incorporates three main systems. The preserved “H Building” becomes the structural and symbolic core of the site. Two new buildings, positioned along the perimeter streets, maintain alignment with the existing urban fabric while forming open U-shaped configurations oriented toward the site’s center. A new pedestrian corridor crosses the block between Grande Rue Saint-Michel and Rue des Trente-Six Ponts. This axis functions as a connective backbone that organizes all programs and exterior spaces along a continuous ground level.

The pathway not only structures internal movement but also frames a sequence of publicly accessible gardens, patios, and squares. These spaces serve both residents and the broader community. The linear circulation route offers a gradual discovery of the site’s spatial and historical layers. The architects described it as a “museum-like experience” that reveals the architectural and academic heritage of Paul Sabatier’s laboratories and supports local engagement with the formerly inaccessible site.

The arrangement of volumes and circulation enhances urban permeability and reinforces relationships with surrounding structures. The scale and orientation of the Notre-Dame school and the “H Building” set the precedent for the placement of the new constructions. The spatial composition avoids direct imitation of historic forms and instead echoes their geometry through contemporary interpretations. The result is a progression of spatial thresholds that guide movement from the public street to the campus interior through a series of unfolding perspectives.

At the programmatic level, the project combines housing and retail spaces designed to support the needs of international researchers and academics. By blending residential and public functions at ground level, the design encourages informal encounters and sustained interaction between academic life and local urban routines. The architecture balances institutional presence with accessibility, ensuring that the site remains open and useful to both the university and the surrounding neighborhoods.

Cité Internationale Université de Toulouse reframes a historical academic site as a contemporary residential and civic campus. Through sensitive preservation, contextual alignment, and strategic insertion, the project bridges heritage and future use. It restores visibility to Toulouse’s scientific history while providing infrastructure for ongoing academic exchange within an accessible urban framework.