Assessing the sustainable development: A review of multi-criteria decision analysis for urban and architectural sustainability

Sustainable development of cities constitutes nowadays a worldwide goal. Therefore, the related urban and architectural choices must fulfil sustainable objectives. In this context, sustainability assessment presents itself as a key and fundamental element to guide decision-making processes, orienting choices towards actions that make the built environment more sustainable. Among the several existing assessment tools and methods, multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) are part of the most widely used approaches to support sustainable decisions. Therefore, this article aims to understand what makes sustainability assessment through MCDA suitable or unsuitable to support decision-making processes in the context of sustainable urban and architectural design and observe how available MCDA methods support this purpose. To do this, a literature review related to MCDA methods in sustainable urban and architectural context has been performed. Descriptive statistics and tables are provided to point out the main trends according to specific research questions. In this sense, it is intended to highlight some potential gaps and points of reflection for future research developments that can support sustainable urban and architectural development.