In July 2026, UTC will see the launch of work to com­plete­ly trans­form the uni­ver­si­ty library at the Ben­jamin ‑Franklin Cen­tre (acronym BUTC). This is a cru­cial step for the insti­tu­tion in mod­ern­iz­ing its infra­struc­ture. Com­ple­tion is sched­uled for Sep­tem­ber 2028!

Opened in 1976, the BUTC will under­go a com­pre­hen­sive ren­o­va­tion of its spaces. The project cov­ers lev­els 2 through 5 of Build­ing F at the Ben­jamin-Franklin Cen­tre. This trans­for­ma­tion aims to cre­ate a true “learn­ing cen­tre,” a next-gen­er­a­tion library that com­plies with evolv­ing edu­ca­tion­al and dig­i­tal prac­tices. The new BUTC will be cen­tred around a redesigned learn­ing space fea­tur­ing a vari­ety of work areas adapt­ed to new forms of learn­ing: zones for indi­vid­u­als, pairs and group work, video­con­fer­enc­ing spaces and mul­ti­pur­pose rooms. Par­tic­u­lar empha­sis will be placed on for­eign lan­guage learn­ing and inter­cul­tur­al edu­ca­tion through the inte­gra­tion of a for­eign lan­guage learn­ing cen­tre. This is a com­ple­men­tary space for self-direct­ed learn­ing and engage­ment with oth­er coun­tries. This space will also be inter­con­nect­ed with part­ners in the Euro­pean SUNRISE Alliance.

In the new BUTC, stu­dents will have access to new ben­e­fits, such as a one-stop ser­vice cen­tre bring­ing togeth­er all stu­dent ser­vices in one place: aca­d­e­m­ic and dig­i­tal sup­port, career coun­selling and inte­gra­tion, assis­tance with inter­na­tion­al mobil­i­ty, aca­d­e­m­ic admin­is­tra­tion, intern­ship search and sup­port for obtain­ing schol­ar­ships and accom­mo­da­tion. There will also be a space for inter­cul­tur­al life that fos­ters exchange and cama­raderie, with areas for relax­ation and social­iz­ing to cre­ate a vibrant cam­pus atmos­phere. It should be not­ed that con­struc­tion will take place while the facil­i­ty remains open, in order to keep the BUTC’s recep­tion area acces­si­ble for as long as pos­si­ble, while also ensur­ing unin­ter­rupt­ed traf­fic flow at the university’s main entrance and in adja­cent buildings.

Up to 1 500 students use the BUTC daily

“What we are aban­don­ing was a library that’s some­what out­dat­ed in terms of the ser­vices and facil­i­ties offered to stu­dents. Stu­dents now work in ways that are dif­fer­ent from what they did 10 or 30 years ago. The idea, there­fore, is to adapt to new needs. Hence, there are very prac­ti­cal aspects, such as group study rooms, elec­tri­cal out­lets, and net­work access that didn’t exist back then,” explains Marie-Dominique Tamet, Direc­tor of the UTC library. “We’ve iden­ti­fied these needs with our project man­ag­er through sur­veys and dis­cus­sions. For exam­ple, the need for qui­et has been clear­ly iden­ti­fied and stu­dent rep­re­sen­ta­tives have rec­om­mend­ed cre­at­ing a com­plete­ly qui­et floor. We will also phys­i­cal­ly trans­fer 30 to 40% of the cur­rent col­lec­tions and reduce the space they occu­py. But hav­ing books implic­it­ly encour­ages peo­ple to work. And there is very strong demand for this “work­ing atmos­phere.” We see 1 000 to 1 500 stu­dents vis­it­ing in a sin­gle day. Our staff totals fif­teen man­ag­ing the library’s oper­a­tions, but we are assist­ed by stu­dent mon­i­tors whom we recruit to be present dur­ing extend­ed hours, i.e., on Sat­ur­day after­noons and evenings, between 7 and 10 p.m.”

Giving a voice to users

Since the start of the project, spe­cial­ized sup­port has been pro­vid­ed through a user expe­ri­ence assis­tance pro­gramme (AMU acronym for Assis­tance à Maîtrise d’Usages)). Céline Tix­i­er, from the C‑Cohérent agency, is on hand to help users adapt to the new spaces. She works close­ly with Jean-Romain Girodet, a DPLG-cer­ti­fied archi­tect and urban plan­ner who grad­u­at­ed from Sci­ences Po Paris. Inter­views and co-cre­ation work­shops took place between June and Octo­ber 2025 with all BUTC users (stu­dents and the var­i­ous UTC Depart­ments) to clear­ly define users’ expec­ta­tions and needs. An ini­tial feed­back work­shop was held at the BUTC in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, fea­tur­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion of the ini­tial plans devel­oped based on the gath­ered needs. Co-cre­ation work­shops were also orga­nized to explore var­i­ous pos­si­bil­i­ties for lay­out and ambiance. “The idea was to engage as close­ly as pos­si­ble with every­one like­ly to use the BUTC—including stu­dents, BUTC staff, fac­ul­ty, as well as all the var­i­ous ser­vice providers, and to gath­er their needs, expec­ta­tions, and concerns—both dur­ing con­struc­tion and after­ward, since there was an entire phase of work with the archi­tect to final­ize the plans and inte­ri­or design ‚” says Céline Tix­i­er, whose role includes ensur­ing that com­mu­ni­ca­tion keeps pace with the project as it pro­gress­es. “We need to antic­i­pate and inform users in a time­ly man­ner so they can make the best use of the facil­i­ties dur­ing con­struc­tion and expe­ri­ence as lit­tle dis­rup­tion as possible—because there will inevitably be some dis­tur­bance.” A project man­age­ment assis­tant (PMA) for ener­gy per­for­mance mon­i­tor­ing has been sup­port­ing UTC-Com­pieg­ne since the design phase and will con­tin­ue to do so for sev­er­al years after the build­ing is put into service.

“This library is going to be incredible!”

Beyond the func­tion­al trans­for­ma­tion, this ren­o­va­tion aims to bring the build­ing ful­ly up to stan­dard com­pli­an­cy with a sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment in ther­mal, acoustic and envi­ron­men­tal per­for­mance. The goal is to offer opti­mal com­fort to users while meet­ing con­tem­po­rary ener­gy effi­cien­cy require­ments. “It’s a small sac­ri­fice to put up with the incon­ve­niences of the con­struc­tion work, but it’s all for a good cause. As soon as I heard about the project, I imme­di­ate­ly loved the idea because right now we have a library that’s get­ting old­er and old­er, with quite a few lim­i­ta­tions,” says Jean Tri­clin, 19, a sec­ond-year stu­dent at UTC and a library assis­tant for the past year. “This library is going to be incred­i­ble! Real­ly. When we were told that ren­o­va­tions were com­ing that would let us work better—that we’d have more work­space, out­lets for our com­put­ers, not to men­tion a much more pleas­ant work atmosphere—we stu­dents were imme­di­ate­ly thrilled. Can’t wait to see the final result!”

KD