As part of the MUSA - Multilayered Urban Sustainability Action project, the article presents a multidisciplinary research aimed at understanding how to make the public space of the Bicocca District of Milan a place of participation and a context of continuous learning on environmental, economic and social sustainability issues. The paper returns a map of the research process to explain the methodological steps that have distinguished it so that they can be transferred and replicated in research paths that are similar in terms of content, objective, conditions and starting resources. Besides the methodological attentions, the article also shares the first results emerging from the literature review on the relationship between territory, participation, documentation and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]