Stone Materials in Modern Buildings: Unconventional Use and Recycling

Dear Colleagues,

The Guest Editors invite researchers and scholars to contribute to the Special Issue entitled “Stone Materials in Modern Buildings: Unconventional Use and Recycling”.

Mineral raw materials are dominant in the composition of building elements, along with their transformation into dimension stones and aggregates to produce artificial materials. However, the extraction and utilization of these raw materials have significant implications, including extensive land consumption and severe environmental impacts. Nowadays, mitigation of these consequences is demanded through sustainable practices, which include exploring unconventional selection and uses of dimension stones and adopting recycled construction technologies in new designs. Innovative strategies can promote the efficiency of materials and the longevity of constructions, also reducing the overall consumption of natural resources.
The Special Issue on “Stone Materials in Modern Buildings: Unconventional Use and Recycling” aims to gather contributions covering original research articles, comprehensive reviews, case studies, and critical analyses of real-world projects. The primary scope of the Special Issue is focused on sustainable construction practices, with a particular emphasis on the innovative and effective implementation of dimension stones and use of recycled construction materials. 

Potential topics for consideration include, but are not restricted to:

• Advances in unconventional natural stones installation in new buildings and life cycle assessments of recycled construction technologies.
• Long-term performance assessment of the building elements combining traditional and modern techniques.
• Climate change and performance evaluation of stones and construction recycling materials in durable construction applications.
• Reduction in the carbon footprint and environmental impact.
• Innovative studies and protocol to strengthen the standardized specification.
• Accurate dimensioning of construction materials.
• Economic value and profitability of new installation of dimension stones and use of recycled materials in construction projects.
• Sustainable selection of materials and practical actions for green solutions.
• Promotion strategies to public awareness and stakeholder engagement in embracing the alternative use of stones and recycled construction materials.
• Future trends and opportunities in the field of novel applications of dimension stones and recycled construction materials.

We look forward to receiving your contributions. 

Dr. Fabio Sitzia
Dr. Flavio Stochino
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.