Research
The UrbanLab investigates how resources circulate through cities and territories, how infrastructures and ecosystems organise these flows, and how institutions, communities and more-than-human actors shape urban transitions.
What Is Urban Metabolism?
Conventional urban-metabolism research often focuses on material and energy balances. UrbanLab extends these approaches by examining how infrastructures and spatial configurations distribute resources, benefits and burdens; how ecosystems sustain urban life; and how cities depend on actors and territories beyond their boundaries.
Research combines quantitative resource-use assessment with spatial, socioeconomic and institutional analysis to examine how infrastructure conditions, ecosystem processes, consumption practices and governance arrangements influence urban transitions.
Research Axis 1
This axis examines how urban infrastructure systems organise flows of energy, materials and essential services, and how their interdependencies shape resource use, emissions, vulnerability and resilience.
Construction serves as a central testbed for studying material stocks and flows, building lifecycles, urban mining, bio-based materials and construction and demolition waste.
Research integrates resource- and material-flow assessment, systems modelling, spatial data and AI-enabled analysis to support circular, climate-resilient and socially responsive infrastructure planning.
SECTORAL TESTBED
Construction
The construction sector provides a critical setting for examining how material stocks, supply chains, energy demand, waste systems and spatial development interact across scales.
Infrastructure Interdependencies and Resilience
Understanding how energy, material, waste and service systems interact, and how disruptions and shared vulnerabilities propagate across them.
Circular Construction and Urban Mining
Examining building lifecycles, material stocks, construction and demolition waste, bio-based materials, reuse and resource recovery.
Resource Provisioning and Spatial Inequality
Investigating how infrastructures distribute access, environmental benefits, exposure and vulnerability across territories and communities.
Interconnected Cities and Regions
Analysing exchanges and dependencies between cities, suburban territories, regions and distant resource-provisioning areas.
Infrastructure Governance and Agency
Examining how institutions, policies, technologies, communities and formal and informal actors shape infrastructure transitions.
Scenarios, Knowledge and Decision Support
Exploring how data, models, institutional knowledge and collaborative scenarios can support integrated infrastructure planning and decision-making.
Related Projects
aIST-nexus
A transdisciplinary programme developing an Agency–Information–Spacetime meta-framework and an integrated model-selection system for urban social-ecological metabolism.
2022–2024
The Spatial Dimension of Urban Metabolism
Research connecting urban resource flows with public space, landscape infrastructure and vulnerable communities.
Doctoral research completed in 2025
CO-HABITAT
A cartographic and design investigation into animal-inclusive urban planning and non-human agency.
Completed in 2024
Resource-Sensitive and Community-Inclusive Urban Archetypes
Nine urban archetypes translating metabolic evidence into practical spatial-design tools.
2023–2026
Research Axis 2
Ecosystem Services, Green Infrastructure and Human Wellbeing
This axis examines how urban ecosystems, landscape infrastructures and nature-based solutions support resource cycles, climate adaptation, health and wellbeing for human and other-than-human species.
It connects urban-metabolism analysis with ecosystem-service and natural-capital approaches to assess the functions, benefits and trade-offs of natural and designed systems and support integrated planning, policy and design.
SECTORAL TESTBED
Healthcare
Healthcare environments provide a critical setting for investigating how green infrastructure, environmental quality and resource-sensitive design contribute to health, continuity of care and societal resilience.
Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital
Connecting ecosystem functions to resource provision, environmental performance and the distribution of benefits.
Nature-Based Solutions
Assessing nature-based interventions within formal settlements, healthcare environments and urban regions.
Green and Landscape Infrastructure
Examining how open spaces, soils, water systems and vegetation support urban metabolism, adaptation and wellbeing.
Climate, Health and Wellbeing
Connecting metabolic assessment with thermal environments, exposure, health inequalities and human wellbeing.
Healthcare Environments and Resilience
Investigating how environmental quality, green infrastructure and resource-sensitive service environments support care, operational continuity and social resilience.
Food Systems and Urban Agriculture
Examining food dependency, urban agriculture and neighbourhood-scale metabolic resilience.
Related Projects
Caring Nature
A Horizon Europe project developing and validating ten solutions to reduce the environmental impact of healthcare while safeguarding care quality and safety.
2024–2026
Green with Grey
Research into the ecological and hydrological potential of desealing industrial sites.
2018–2022
Climate-Positive Design in Landscape Architecture
Research into metabolic and life-cycle thinking in landscape architecture practice, policy and education.
Postdoctoral research in 2025
UMaNS
An integrated framework connecting urban metabolism, ecosystem-service assessment and dynamic modelling.
Doctoral research completed in 2025
ANALYTICAL CAPABILITIES
Geospatial Data Integration
Explainable AI and Spatial Clustering
Remote Sensing and Spatial Statistics
Computational Modelling
Decision-Support Tools
Data Curation and Open Knowledge
INTEGRATIVE PERSPECTIVES
Agency and Governance
Environmental and Spatial Justice
Research Through Design
Multispecies Urban Planning
Methods
The Lab integrates methods that are often separated in urban research, combining resource- and material-flow assessment, systems modelling, spatial data, AI-enabled analysis, participatory inquiry and research through design.
Resource and Material-Flow Assessment
Material-flow analysis, resource accounting, material-stock analysis, life-cycle assessment and infrastructure metabolism.
Systems Modelling
Dynamic and relational modelling, network analysis, scenario development and decision-support frameworks.
Spatial Analysis
GIS, remote sensing, spatial statistics, territorial mapping and landscape analysis.
Data Integration and Artificial Intelligence
Urban data integration, explainable AI, spatial clustering, data curation and computational literature analysis.
Conceptual Research
Philosophy of science, systems theory, conceptual engineering and the study of agency.
Participatory Research
Stakeholder engagement, co-design workshops, interviews, household surveys and collaborative scenario building.
Research Through Design
Translating metabolic evidence into spatial strategies, urban archetypes, infrastructure scenarios and landscape interventions.
Start a research conversation
Contact Daniela Perrotti to discuss collaborative research, project partnerships, methodological exchange and institutional cooperation.
Contact Daniela Perrotti