Institut universitaire de l'Indre

In 1988, the city of Châteauroux acquired the former Balsan textile factory site, covering 49 hectares and unused since the 1970s, to develop a new neighborhood under the guidance of urban architect Alexandre Melissinos. The ZAC was established in 1993 to house a branch of the University of Orléans as part of a government initiative to enhance higher education in the early 1990s. A large plot near the banks of the Indre River and the Raoul Castle was selected for the project, which was designed by local architect Monique Barge and completed in January 1996.