In this paper, we propose the concept of reliability as a way to introduce innovation in sustainable building design and built environment processes. For us reliability of agents and actions represents a new perspective for a radical restructuring of sustainability evaluation; in fact, reliability catches interactions between buildings and built environments, contextualizing design solutions and stimulating the regenerative capacities of a context. The paper highlights the much potential that reliability shows. It can be considered an operative tool to practice the regenerative approach; it can be a strong stimulus to innovate design activities; it can be a catalyst element of multiple stakeholders’ perspectives. In the attempt to address sustainability drawing on the regenerative approach, reliability stimulates the use of new conceptual tools, implies the application of new ways of acting, and challenges our knowledge and current technologies thus promoting innovation and experimentation.

Methods and systems for evaluating building and urban sustainability have become useful tools for supporting designing and planning of the built environment. Despite their relevance in implementing sustainable development, a new challenge is to overcome their limitations inhibiting a more effective and lasting sustainability. The paper presents a research working on the absence of spatial integration in existing evaluation systems, and advances a novel approach to re-interpret sustainability evaluation on conceptual, methodological and operational level. Key elements are: integrating the building and urban scales of sustainability evaluation by modelling the built environment as a socio-ecological system; re-framing sustainable building design as a spatial practice able to activate regenerative capacities of a place. Opening new frontiers for evaluation, this approach supports learning in designing and planning processes and helps decision-making actors to build creative solutions.

This paper reports the first results of an on-going research, which aims at bridging the gap between the sustainable building design and its expected potential benefit or impact considered at different urban scales. It proposes the concept of the urban matrix as a tool allowing a more holistic analysis and design of sustainable buildings. Some key performance indicators are singled out for reporting the relationships between sustainable design and the metabolism of the urban matrix; they are expected to be holistic, and usable as a tool for a sustainable design integrating buildings and cities.