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^{Paris-Diderot University, installed in the Former Halles aux Farines.}

^{Perspective du Campus Porte de la Chapelle © Ville de Paris}

Student Places :
universities, housing, laboratories, librairies and everyday student life spaces in the metropolitan Paris

Since its creation, the Paris Transformations Summer School has explored the ways in which Paris  continuously reinvents itself through the transformation of its built environment.

Each edition has focused  on a particular urban ecosystem—metropolitan territories, gardens, fashion districts, of spectacle or  social housing—not simply as architectural objects but as expressions of broader social, economic and  political change.

Following five successful annual summer school events with the general title ParisTransformations¹, we are  pleased to launch the sixth event in the series for the year 2027.

The sixth edition turns to another fundamental yet often overlooked dimension of the metropolitan fabric:  the places of student life.

Few European cities are as deeply shaped by higher education as Paris. Home to hundreds of thousands  of students, dozens of universities and Grandes écoles, internationally renowned research centers and  one of the world's oldest academic traditions, the Paris metropolitan area is simultaneously a city of  knowledge production and a city transformed by knowledge. Universities have never been static  institutions. They have constantly adapted to demographic growth, scientific revolutions, changing  pedagogies, internationalization, digital technologies, environmental imperatives and new expectations  regarding student wellbeing. These transformations have left a profound imprint on the urban  landscape.

Rather than studying universities as isolated institutions, this Summer School proposes to examine the  entire ecosystem of places that support student life: university campuses, historic faculties, libraries,  laboratories, student residences, cafeterias, cultural venues, public spaces and everyday infrastructures.  Together, these spaces form a complex geography whose evolution reflects changing conceptions of  education, research and urban life.

The emphasis of the program is deliberately placed on the transformation of existing places. Paris is not  a city that expands primarily through the construction of entirely new university districts. Instead,  constrained by its dense urban fabric and extraordinary architectural heritage, it constantly reinvents  existing buildings and neighborhoods. Former industrial sites become research campuses; obsolete  university buildings are rehabilitated to meet contemporary environmental standards; historic colleges  are adapted to digital teaching; student residences are modernized to respond to new lifestyles; libraries  become collaborative learning environments; and university restaurants evolve into multifunctional  social spaces. Understanding these processes means understanding how metropolises such as Paris adapt without erasing their inherited urban fabric.


This perspective is particularly relevant today because higher education itself is undergoing profound  transformations. Universities are becoming increasingly international, interdisciplinary and digitally  connected. Teaching methods increasingly privilege collaborative work over traditional lectures.  Laboratories require new forms of technological infrastructure. Climate change imposes ambitious  energy renovations on ageing campuses. Student mental health and wellbeing have become central  concerns, encouraging the creation of more inclusive and welcoming environments. Finally, the  experience of the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated reflections on hybrid learning, flexible spaces and  the relationship between physical presence and digital education. These institutional changes inevitably  translate into spatial transformations.

Paris offers an exceptional laboratory for observing these dynamics.

One of the most significant recent examples is the development of the Campus Condorcet (arch.  Françoise Mauffret and Jean Guervilly), illustrates how higher education participates in the regeneration  of formerly peripheral metropolitan areas. While its principal site was established in Aubervilliers, the  opening of the new La Chapelle campus in northern Paris represents one of the largest university  developments within the city for decades. Built on a former railway site at Porte de la Chapelle, the  project combines teaching spaces, libraries, student service

s, restaurants and public areas while  contributing to the broader transformation of a neighborhood long characterized by industrial and  transport infrastructures. The campus demonstrates how contemporary university architecture  increasingly functions as an urban project, integrating environmental performance, accessibility and  mixed uses rather than remaining enclosed behind institutional boundaries.

In the center of the city, an emblematic example is the continuing transformation of the historic Jussieu  campus (arch. Jean Nouvel), today part of Sorbonne Université. Originally conceived during the era of  mass higher education in the 1960s and 1970s, the campus has undergone successive waves of  rehabilitation, first through the complex removal of asbestos and more recently through programs aimed  at improving environmental performance and student life. Buildings tha

t once housed laboratories and  offices are being transformed into new student residences (arch. Abinal & Ropars), renovated university  restaurants, sports facilities and social spaces illustrate how the challenge is no longer merely preserving  iconic modernist architecture but adapting it to contemporary academic practices and environmental  expectations. 

Of particular interest as examples of the conversion of historic buildings are schools of architecture and  other arts, such as the Belleville School of Architecture, housed in a secondary school built in 1913 by the  architect Antonin Durand and refurbished by Jean-Paul Philippon, the Villette School of Architecture,  which was originally an industrial warehouse and ceramics factory before being converted into a school of architecture in the 1970s, Paris Malaquais, which is housed in a building that evolved from a monastery  into a museum and subsequently into a school of fine arts and architecture. As well as the Institut Français  de la Mode et du Design (arch. Patrick Mauger) which is the conversion of a concrete warehouse on  the banks of the Seine; the National Dance Centre in Pantin, which is the conversion of an administrative  building (arch. A. Robain, Cl. Guiéyre), as well as spaces at the Opéra Garnier that have been converted  into the Opera’s dance school and library. The same applies to venues for music education, such as the  Salle Cortot (architect: A. Perret), the pioneering conservatoire in Montreuil (architect: Claude Le Goas)  following its recent refurbishment, as well as the National Conservatoire (architect Chr. De Portzamparc),  which is not a conversio

n of an existing building but forms part of the redevelopment of a large site of  former abattoirs in the well-known Parc de La Villette, of which the building is an integral part.

Student housing provides another particularly fertile field of investigation. Paris faces one of Europe's  most acute housing crises, making access to affordable accommodation one of the defining  dimensions of student experience. This has stimulated numerous rehabilitation projects involving CROUS  residences, adaptive reuse of existing buildings and the continuous evolution of the Cité Intérnationale  Universitaire de Paris. Originally conceived in the interwar period as an international campus promoting  peace through academic exchange, the Cité has progressively transformed into a living laboratory of  international mobility, architectural heritage and contemporary sustainability. Successive renovations  seek to reconcile heritage preservation with new standards of accessibility, energy efficiency and  student comfort. Student accommodation is also very often included in social housing complexes often involving a combination of uses (e.g arch. RH+). 

Equally revealing are the transformations of university li

braries. No longer conceived primarily as  repositories of books, libraries increasingly function as collective workspaces, digital laboratories, social  environments and cultural venues. Their architecture reflects changing pedagogical philosophies in  which informal learning, interdisciplinary collaboration and extended opening hours become as  important as traditional collections. Very often, libraries are aimed at the general public. Among them,  we might mention the renovation and transformation of the historic National Library of France, with its famous Labrouste Hall, the Sainte-Geneviève Library by the same architect, as well as the historic library  of the Faculty of Medicine, and the transformation of the prison Saint Lazare into the Françoise Sagan  media library (arch. Antoine Mortemard).

Student restaurants and cafeterias have experienced similar evolutions. Beyond their original welfare  function, they increasingly operate as social infrastructures that contribute to campus life, cultural  diversity and everyday conviviality, an example of this is the recent transformation of the College des  Bernardins, a 13th-century building which is also open to the public (arch. H. Baptiste and Wilmotte  &ass.). Their renovation often reflects broader concerns regarding sustainability, local food systems,  circular economies and public health. These apparently ordinary places reveal how student life itself has  become an object of urban and institutional design.

Laboratories constitute another essential dimension of this changing geography. Scientific research  increasingly depends upon flexible spaces capable of accommodating rapidly evolving technologies  and interdisciplinary collaborations. Historic laboratory buildings (such as the Pavillon Curie of the Radium  Institute) are therefore continuously adapted, expanded or reorganized to meet new scientific  requirements while respecting architectural and environmental constraints. Their evolution illustrates the  close relationship between knowledge production and the transformation of the built environment.


^{︎︎︎Campus Condorcet, photographie Vincent Bourdon}

The metropolitan scale is equally important. During recent decades, the geography of higher education  has progressively expanded beyond the historic center of Paris towards neighboring municipalities.  Campuses in Aubervilliers (Campus Condorcet), Saint-Denis, Saclay or Ivry-sur-Seine demonstrate how  universities have become powerful actors of metropolitan restructuring. These developments raise  important questions concerning accessibility, student mobility, social integration, relations with local  communities and the emergence of new urban centralities. Universities do not merely occupy  metropolitan territories; they actively participate in producing them.

This spatial expansion also invites reflection on the relationship between universities and surrounding  neighborhoods. Contemporary campuses are increasingly conceived as porous environments  connected to public transport, cultural facilities, local commerce and public spaces. The distinction  between "university" and "city" becomes progressively blurred as campuses evolve into mixed urban  districts inhabited not only by students and researchers but also by local residents, entrepreneurs and  visitors.

The transformation of student spaces also needs to be understood within the broader urban process of  “studentification”, it contributes to reshaping neighborhoods through the growing demand for student  accommodation, the diversification of commercial services, the emergence of new co-living and co working spaces, and changing patterns of urban sociability. 

The Summer School therefore proposes to analyze student spaces not simply as educational facilities but  as places where broader urban transformations become visible. Questions of heritage conservation,  adaptive reuse, sustainability, housing affordability, social inclusion, international mobility, metropolitan  governance and climate adaptation all converge within these everyday environments. The university  becomes a privileged observatory through which to understand how contemporary cities negotiate  continuity and change.

More fundamentally, studying the transformation of student spaces also means recognizing that  universities are not only institutions that produce knowledge. They produce urbanity, in the sense that  they shape neighborhoods, create daily mobilities, influence housing markets, stimulate cultural activities  and contribute to the identity of entire districts. 

By focusing on these reciprocal transformations, the sixth edition of the Paris Transformations Summer  School seeks to move beyond conventional analyses of higher education. It invites participants to  explore the university as a dynamic urban ecosystem whose buildings, infrastructures and everyday  places reveal the evolving relationship between knowledge, society and the contemporary metropolis.

Rather than treating studentification as merely a demographic or housing phenomenon, the program  approaches it as a spatial and architectural process in which the adaptation of existing places both  reflects and actively shapes the future of university life. Paris, with its exceptional combination of historic  academic institutions, ambitious rehabilitation projects and expanding metropolitan campuses, offers  an unparalleled field laboratory for examining these intertwined transformations.

The Summer School will present all the facets of this complex, both historic, social, and extremely  innovative student and study landscape of Paris.
Understanding student spaces as an important factor  of urban and metropolitan transformations, the summer school will alternate field visits and in-room  conferences by experts, during a full one-week program.

You can find all the information about this upcoming edition in the call brochure, following this link. 

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^{1.  (ParisTransformations I: Architectural, Urban, Metropolitan, in 2022, ParisTransformations II: Landscape, Gardens, Urban Parks; in 2023, Paris Transformations III: Places of spectacle, in 2024
Paris Transformations IV: Places of Fashion in 2025 and Paris Transformations V: Social Housing in 2026)}