A new framework for the quantification of sustainability, inclusiveness, and aesthetics of structures and urban areas

The construction industry accounts for approximately 40% of Europe's total energy consumption, emphasizing the urgent need for more sustainable urban areas.Various building sustainability rating systems have been developed worldwide to address environmental impacts.However, inconsistencies in their application, due to differences in climatic conditions, building typologies, and policy frameworks, pose challenges for effective implementation.Beyond sustainability, rapid industrialization and urbanization have amplified socioeconomic disparities, underlining the necessity for inclusive and aesthetically pleasing designs that reflect modern community standards.To address these challenges, the European Union launched the New European Bauhaus (NEB) initiative in 2020.NEB aims to harmonize sustainability, inclusiveness, and aesthetics within the built environment through interdisciplinary collaboration among engineers, architects, researchers, businesses, and citizens.This study proposes a comprehensive framework to enable the self-assessment of buildings in alignment with NEB goals.The framework adopts a flexible weighting system based on fuzzy logic, ensuring regional relevance and adaptability.The framework employs an arithmetic aggregation method, which balances strong and weak performance areas, ensuring a holistic assessment of both new projects and existing urban areas.It is structured hierarchically to facilitate a multi-level evaluation of building performance.At the foundational level, subindicators capture detailed metrics addressing specific aspects of a project, such as energy efficiency, material sustainability, and community integration.These sub-indicators are aggregated to form indicators, which provide a more integrated evaluation of performance areas, including resource efficiency, accessibility, and design quality.The next level involves dimension indices, which consolidate indicators into three major dimensions, i.e., sustainability, inclusiveness, and aesthetics, representing the core principles of NEB.At the top of this hierarchy is the NEB Performance Index, which quantifies a project's overall performance in meeting NEB's goals.The validation process is integral to the framework.The quantified scores of dimension indices are compared to predefined benchmark thresholds.Projects failing to meet thresholds undergo an iterative redesign process to address deficiencies in underperforming dimensions, refining designs until compliance is achieved.By integrating NEB principles of sustainability, inclusiveness, and aesthetics, this framework provides a