Promoting Circular Design in the Built Environment: Insights from the Application of Material Stock Analysis to a Case Study in Milan

The construction sector plays a central role in global resource depletion and waste generation, with construction and demolition activities accounting for more than one-third of total waste produced in the European Union. Despite growing interest in circular construction, one of the major barriers to large-scale material reuse is the lack of reliable information on the type, quantity, location, and availability of secondary materials in the urban environment. Existing planning tools rarely integrate material stock information into design and policy decision-making processes. Addressing this gap is essential for implementing circular economy strategies and enabling urban mining practices. This study presents the application of a spatially explicit bottom-up Material Stock Analysis (MSA) to quantify and map the embedded materials within an urban district of Milan. The research results in the creation of a secondary material cadaster and the estimation of material stock. The adopted methodology combines municipal GIS datasets, historical cartography, building archetype classification, and literature-derived material intensity coefficients. The final dataset is re-integrated into a geospatial environment to visualize material distributions and generate material-specific spatial analyses and heat maps. The study intends to support architects, urban designers, planners, and policymakers with decision-support information to guide design strategies, demolition planning, and resource governance at the district and metropolitan scales. The outcome aims at bridging architectural design knowledge with urban-scale material information through a replicable GIS-based workflow.