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MATERIALS 49
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census that records the materials of surveyed buildings, these Historical, Traditional, & Contemporary Construction
sources are less reliable than the real estate registry. Systems
This is because the former does not confirm whether the Since the record of wooden square metres in the Chilean real
permitted building was constructed or modified, and the latter estate database refers to the gross built surface area and not

faces issues related to survey-based data collection, where the volume or specific mass of the material, a methodology
residents may provide incorrect or incomplete information is developed to quantify the material intensity (MI) of wood
about the building systems they inhabit. per square metre.
The data provided by the real estate record and their The MI is an indicator that represents the mass of various
uses in this work consist of eight files (from 2017 to 2024) materials per surface area or volume, typically expressed in
that address urban areas and focus on parcels and building kg/m2 or kg/m3. It is calculated by dividing the mass of
information. a given construction material by the gross surface area or
The Chilean real estate record also provides detailed internal volume of the project that is being measured, which
information at the municipality, block, and property levels, subsequently generates a record for the set of materials used.

with over eight million entries nationwide. In this case study, In this way, by calculating the material in a project (whether
32 municipalities that make up the province of Santiago or based on design specifications, the material used during
city of Santiago are analysed (the country’s most densely construction, or the material registered during demolition), it
populated urban area). is possible to establish the MI for a specific material. In the
For the purposes of this study, analyses are conducted case of wood, the mass depends on the equilibrium moisture
at both the city of Santiago and municipality levels, summing content, so the MI of wood can be calculated either at the
the square metres accordingly, to understand how wood and equilibrium moisture point or in a completely dry state.

its associated biogenic carbon are dis- tributed within the The MI is commonly used by researchers to track the flow
urban environment. of construction materials within buildings, assess their lifespan,
For the same reason, the results and analyses are create inventories, study material recovery potential, analyse
limited exclusively to buildings that list wood as their primary temporal–spatial identification, and evaluate environmental
construction system regardless of whether it represents only impacts, among other applications.
a small part of a building complex that may include a greater Materials associated with products that are prone to
proportion of square metres constructed with other materials, renovation, such as interior finishes or coverings, are more
either before or after.
It is important to note that while the real estate record is

the most reliable source of this type of information for this Alisha Lubben
case study, it contains some inconsistencies and lacks de- tail.
An example of this is that it might include properties
that have not been properly regularised or have undergone
undeclared modifications not identified by inspectors.
Additionally, the registry does not specify the construction
methods used for wood, making it impossible to distinguish

between frame systems or mass timber, which could affect
the quantification of the material.