Methods and systems for evaluating building and urban sustainability have become useful tools for supporting designing and planning of the built environment. Despite their relevance in implementing sustainable development, a new challenge is to overcome their limitations inhibiting a more effective and lasting sustainability. The paper presents a research working on the absence of spatial integration in existing evaluation systems, and advances a novel approach to re-interpret sustainability evaluation on conceptual, methodological and operational level. Key elements are: integrating the building and urban scales of sustainability evaluation by modelling the built environment as a socio-ecological system; re-framing sustainable building design as a spatial practice able to activate regenerative capacities of a place. Opening new frontiers for evaluation, this approach supports learning in designing and planning processes and helps decision-making actors to build creative solutions.