Teaching design in relation with the challenge of transition cannot be dissociated from a reflection on the evolution of professional practices and the status of the designer. The seminar entitled “Rethinking metropolisation, building a world in transition” initiated in 2016 at the National School of Architecture and Landscape Design of Bordeaux is a teaching program where such reflection takes place. Based on field work conducted in France and abroad, students participating in this seminar are asked to examine these evolutions. This critical thinking approach to metropolisation processes aims to identify alternative models of urbanization and to analyze their social, political, economic and spatial implications. After six years since it was founded, and the production of nearly 80 master thesis and articles, the work carried out in this seminar represents a significant corpus on the above mentioned issues. The purpose of this communication is to present these contributions. More than an exhaustive presentation, it aims to analyze this corpus while establishing a bank of knowledge on this subject, and to shed light on the pedagogical evolutions which affect the transmission of the necessary skills. The key place of transdisciplinary knowledge and the plurality of profiles of teachers involved in this seminar (architect, economist, geographer, landscaper, urban planner, sociologist) are highlighted. As an indication, issues in design processes such as grassroots skills, acting collectively, participative democracy are addressed to highlight key evolutions. It is the challenge of a new professional ethic enabling the re-connection of things and beings by associating the resources of the earth beyond their exploitability which is also addressed. In this context, rethinking metropolisation does not imply the rejection of this process, but to rethink its characteristics in order to formulate reconnecting scenarios between urbanization and territorial and human resources in the era of the Anthropocene.