SAPTIOPORT - LUNE EXPLORER
At the intersection of the real and the simulated, the spaceport offers a “Motionless Journey” within an architecture of paradox: a building designed to host movement, a structure whose core defies the laws of gravity.
Inaugurated in 1959 by Charles de Gaulle, the CEMES geode houses a powerful electron microscope. During his visit, the President of the Republic, impressed by the modernity of this equipment, decided to make Toulouse the scientific capital of France. Since then, the city has hosted numerous national engineering schools, and its economy largely relies on companies and industries in the aeronautics and space sectors. Toulouse has made this its trademark.
When we were first selected by the Toulouse metropolis, it was for a project linked to the Cité de l’Espace — a space flight simulator. During the competition briefing, the project manager from the city framed it this way: “When you arrive by car in Toulouse, on the highway signs, you recognize the Place du Capitole and the Cité de l’Espace.” Honestly, we would have preferred to be entrusted with the restructuring of the Thales Aerospace headquarters or an Airbus assembly line rather than a theme park ride… but for people from Toulouse, working closely or remotely in the space field is a great reward — a mark of trust from the Metropolis. It rewards our professional journey. We’ve truly enjoyed this experience and gladly accept our client’s invitations to share a drink and conversation with Thomas Pesquet, one of their ambassadors.
Conceived as a spatial ritual, the user’s journey mirrors that of an imaginary astronaut: crossing the building’s threshold, taking place inside the centrifuge, feeling the acceleration, the loss of bearings, then gradually returning to Earth’s gravity. The ride becomes a sensory machine — a simulator of gravitational emotion.
Neither a museum nor an amusement ride, the spaceport is an experiential space, designed to welcome a multiplicity of narratives.
Technology (centrifuge, dynamic lighting, spatialized sound) serves a poetics of weightlessness: it doesn’t show — it makes you feel.
The Motionless Journey speaks as much to the child as to the engineer, to the dreamer as to the scientist
