If the major public spaces of the city of Bordeaux's center had been the subject of dramatic transformations (construction of the quays and accompanying features for the tramway), its general landscape remained undefined in 2002. Its green spaces are unequally distributed throughout, and vary significantly in quality, thus failing to create a legible organization appropriate to the scale of such a diffuse city. Bordeaux's elected representatives wished to adopt a “vision” capable of transforming their landscape, as well as tools – guidelines – for its coherent construction. The method we proposed was to proceed by case studies, both helping to define a formative language for the guidelines. The formulation of ten or so projects over a year allowed for the definition of an aesthetic for the territory, during which knowledge and experience were shared among the actors involved. Each month we engaged in a collective exercise in situ: for each site we identified the problematic issues stratum by stratum (spatial unities, boundaries, typology, grading, ground and soil, vegetal configuration...). An empirical pedagogy that continued to develop all the way up until the construction of prototypes. This experience of inquiry took the place of classic regulatory documents.