The Nouveau Tertre: A new urban vision of the campus

The Nouveau Tertre project is part of a design-build-operate-maintain contract won by Bouygues Bâtiment Grand Ouest, a Bouygues Construction subsidiary. The project involves both rehabilitating the main Tertre building, and requalifying the existing Censive and Château buildings. 

The project will bring the university buildings, originally built at the start of the 60s, up to date. The operation will result in more open, practical, and energy-efficient buildings. Existing buildings will achieve ‘Low Consumption Building Renovation’ status (BBC 2005) based on consumption levels 40% lower than average.

Phase one was launched in November with the demolition of the existing lecture hall. The space will make way for a large passageway from public areas to an open esplanade which will lead to a new, central building. Administrative services for teaching and research, and the history, psychology, sociology, and French as a foreign language (FLE) departments will be located there, as well as the libraries for each of these disciplines. 

A project on an occupied site

The departments housed in the Tertre building have moved to a different building for the duration of construction works. As the site is in use, creating a schedule and managing the rooms set up is like a complicated game of musical chairs. 

However, this apparently isn’t an issue.

Aude, a first year master’s student, stated that “Most of my classes take place just behind the wing under construction. The noise doesn't bother us because the lecture halls are pretty soundproof.”  Maëlie, a law student, confirms that “You can’t hear anything in the library. It hasn’t really affected my routine.”

Assistance for users

A representative will be on-site to make sure things go smoothly and to answer any questions students, teachers or administrative staff may have throughout the rehabilitation works. The representative will be there to listen to any concerns. They will provide information on the project's progression with guided visits of the construction site. They will also be there to respond to any possible issues arising from the construction work.  There is a special e-mail address and phone number provided for this purpose. A chart tracking any potential disruptions will be sent out to users each week. In this capacity, the representative will serve as an intermediary between users and site teams.