PSI - Issue 78

Valentina Buonocunto et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 78 (2026) 169–176

171

• Building geometry and layout : Additional parameters were considered to refine the taxonomy and support the generation of structural archetypes. These include number of storeys, floor area, interstorey height, wall thickness, wall spacing, and percentage of openings. Although some of this information is incomplete in national datasets, statistical distributions extracted from CARTIS and ISTAT allow probabilistic modelling at regional scale. By combining these attributes, the taxonomy ensures internal consistency, geographic representativeness, and compatibility with seismic vulnerability assessment tools. 3. Proposed taxonomic framework The proposed taxonomy aims at supporting large-scale seismic risk assessment of masonry buildings in Italy by integrating construction-related, structural, and geometric parameters into a unified classification system. This framework relies primarily on data extracted from CARTIS database (Zuccaro et al., 2015), complemented by the 2011 ISTAT census data (ISTAT, 2011) and national technical guidelines. It is organized around three main variables as follows: age of construction, masonry type and floor system. Additional features such as wall thickness and building geometry are also considered to support the development of representative structural archetypes. An initial consideration concerns the spatial coverage and completeness of CARTIS database. While the database provides valuable information, its completeness varies across Italian regions. In this respect, only five regions ( i.e. , Campania, Emilia-Romagna, Sicilia, Toscana and Veneto) show data completeness greater than 10%, making them the most statistically reliable for regional analyses, as shown in Figure 1. This uneven coverage should be taken into account when generalizing results at national level.

10 1 20 2 0 il in s

20.

1 .

1 .

11.0 11.0

.

.

2.

2.0

1.

1. 0.

0.

0. 0.1

0.2

0.2 1.2

0

e i n

Figure 1. Completeness of the CARTIS database across Italian regions A crucial step in the development of the taxonomy was the harmonization between the masonry typologies recorded in CARTIS database and those defined by Commentary No. 7/2019 to the Italian Building Code (MIT, 2019). This correspondence enables the translation of survey-based descriptive categories into structural typologies with known mechanical properties, thus allowing for more accurate assignment of fragility functions and better representation of material uncertainty. The mapping is reported in Table 1, creating a fundamental connection between empirical inventory data and performance-based engineering. As mentioned in Sect. 2, the classification of construction periods is organized into six intervals that reflect both historical construction practices and major regulatory transitions. Figure 2a shows that approximately 39% of the masonry buildings in the dataset were constructed before 1919, while only 8% were built after 1981. This highlights the predominance of pre-code masonry stock, especially in historic centers, and the urgency of including this portion of the built environment in seismic mitigation strategies. The overall distribution of masonry types reveals a clear predominance of type A2 masonry, i.e., irregular stone masonry with non-homogeneous thickness, which accounts for 53% of all recorded buildings, as illustrated in Figure