The Biome: greenhouses of the Besançon Botanical Garden

Besançon's botanical garden goes back to 1726, when the municipal council granted it a plot near the Promenade Granvelle. Over the centuries it moved about ten times: the École centrale (1796-1803), the Petit Chamars (1804-1821), the courtyard of the medical school (1845-1874), the roundabout at the Pont Canot (1896-1956), and then the Place du Général-Leclerc site, occupied from 1957 to 2018, which had earned the "Jardin botanique de France et des pays francophones" label. That old garden closed in March 2018 to prepare the transfer of the collections, which were kept in the meantime at the municipal orangery until 2025.

The new project, called the Biome, forms part of the transformation of the Bouloie-Temis campus. According to the specialist press, building ran from 2022 to 2024, for the City of Besançon and the university, with Philippe Rizzotti as architect. The complex, which also serves as the gateway to the scientific campus, was inaugurated on 30 August 2025, seven years after the old site closed. The announced cost varies with the source: 2.3 million euros in an architecture presentation, 4.2 million in the local press and 5.2 million in a France 3 report, probably reflecting different scopes.

The Biome is organised on two levels. A mineral base, set into the slope and faced with natural stone walls that echo the foundations of neighbouring university buildings, holds the working spaces; it opens onto the park at ground level. Above it rises the transparent greenhouse volume, which the public walks through on the upper level. Some sequences reach a double height of about 12 metres, and an internal footbridge overlooks the plantings below.

The building is conceived as a "buffer volume" that keeps energy consumption low. Its programme was cut back to about 1,000 m² from the 1,500 m² first envisaged. The local press reports a temperate house of 140 m² and a humid tropical house of 600 m². The design team included CDG for structure, Planair for building services, AUTEC for greenhouse equipment and the agency Territoires for landscape. The sources consulted do not state what glazing material was used.

The temperate house, devoted to arid environments, brings together cacti, euphorbias and other desert plants, with a pool of carnivorous plants including sarracenias and sundews. The large humid tropical house, titled "Peuples en nature", presents plants from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania, among them palms, tree ferns and many orchids. It includes waterfalls, an immersive Amazon rainforest sequence with orchids and epiphytes, and a cabinet of curiosities mixing terrestrial and aquatic species.

The garden also highlights rare and threatened island species from New Caledonia, Fiji and Vanuatu. A third greenhouse, for conservation and research, is not freely accessible: its glass walls allow visitors to see endangered species and specimens kept for university research. The total collection is put at about 3,500 species in one regional report and about 5,000 in the encyclopedia, which may include the outdoor garden.

The Biome stands at 16 route de Gray, on the Bouloie campus, at the entrance to the Bouloie-Temis science district. The route through the two publicly open houses is completed by the outdoor garden, which evokes the natural habitats of Franche-Comté (wetlands, peat bogs, rock gardens) and remains freely accessible. The building also holds La Fabrika, a space for exhibitions and workshops combining science and the arts, for families and school groups alike.

A plant nursery is open to the public. The length of a visit depends mostly on interest in the workshops and exhibitions of La Fabrika; since the opening is very recent, it is wise to check on arrival which parts of the route are in operation.