Sustainability is the balance of three essential elements: environment, social factors and economics. In architecture and urban planning, sustainability is not only a matter of producing a design in keeping with environmental criteria, developed with passive conditioning techniques and with the life cycle of its materials in mind, but also paying attention to the influence of the building in its social and economic context. The agents involved in the construction of buildings, the comfort and well-being conditions for dwellers in the indoor spaces and the potential implications of their demolition are aspects that must be assessed from the social point of view. Furthermore, other issues to be considered are the feasibility and cost of the buildings both in the construction phase and in terms of maintenance, later demolition and, if that be the case, recycling. All of these issues are related to ‘economic sustainability’...

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