Giuseppe Barbiero

• PhD
• Professor (Assistant) at University of Valle d'Aosta

Biophilic Design is a design system based on Kellert and Wilson's Biophilia Hypothesis. Biophilia is literally ‘love for life’ – a feeling distinguished by the fascination evoked in human beings for Nature provoked by contact with Nature and by the affiliation that human beings establish with Nature. Biophilia is an evolutionary adaptation consisti...

Carocci editore Studi Superiori Che cos'è la biofilia? È il nostro amore per la vita e per la Natura. La biofilia è innata ma non istintiva, per questo va educata affinché possa fiorire in una relazione sana e gratificante con il mondo naturale. Unendo rigore scientifico e scrittura colloquiale, il volume, in un'edizione aggiornata e ampliata, desc...

Articolo integrale: https://www.ingenio-web.it/articoli/biophilic-design-migliora-l-apprendimento-a-scuola-e-rinforza-il-sentimento-di-affiliazione-con-la-natura/

Connectedness to Nature and the ability to perceive the restorative value of places characterised by the presence of natural elements are personal characteristics that, when appropriately measured, make it possible to predict an individual’s attitude towards pro-environmental behaviour. While these characteristics have an innate basis, they are als...

Connectedness to Nature and the ability to perceive the restorativeness value of places characterized by the presence of natural elements are personal characteristics that, when appropriately measured, make it possible to predict an individual’s attitude toward pro-environmental behaviors. While these characteristics have an innate basis, they are...

(1) Background: Connectedness with Nature is a personality trait that influences our relationship with Nature. But Nature is not all the same. Wilderness is Nature in its original form, the form within which human beings have evolved as a species, while what we refer to as domesticated and urban Nature are relatively recent products of our interact...

Biophilic Design is an applied science that takes into account the most recent findings on the relationship between human beings and Nature to render artificial spaces more coherent with innate human biophilia. It is well known that the application of Biophilic Design reduces stress, stimulates creativity and clear thinking, improves physical and p...

Citation: Berto, R., Barbiero, G., and Salingaros, N.A. (2022) Biophilic design of building façades from an Evolutionary Psychology framework: Visual Attention Software compared to Perceived Restorativeness. Visions for Sustainability, 18, 7054, 1-34. http://dx.

When we launched Visions for Sustainability, we wanted to provide a space for as wide a range as possible of ways of looking at the concept of sustainability and at the same time of considering the multiple perspectives from which that concept can shed light on the ecological trajectories of all the biotic and abiotic components of the planet we in...

Humans are inherently attracted to all that is alive; this attraction is called biophilia. Biophilia is an evolutionary trait which contributes to self-preservation and reproduction, and it does so by providing us with useful information about the natural environment. Biophilia was initially used by Erich Fromm to describe the psychological orienta...

Biophilic design is an architectural model that offers the possibility to create the Nature-based Innovative Learning Environment (ILE), which might support cognitive processes and stimulate affiliation with Nature. Bracing Biophilia is an exploratory research programme which verifies the effect of Nature-based ILEs on pupils’ attentional performan...

Biophilia is a human personality trait described initially by Erich Fromm and later by E.O. Wilson, both of whom agree that biophilia has a biological basis and that it is fundamental to develop harmonious relationships between humans and the biosphere. This review aims at establishing a definition of biophilia as an evolutionary process. To this e...

Biophilic Design is an applied science that takes into account the most recent findings on the relationship between Man and Nature to render artificial spaces more coherent with innate human biophilia. It is well known that the application of Biophilic Design reduces stress, stimulates creativity and clear thinking, improves physical and psychologi...

Individuals are not passively affected by the physical characteristics of the environment. On the contrary, they react to it and try to modify it. Their efforts are towards environments more restorative and sustainable from a cognitive point of view, i.e. environments where daily life is less stressful and more satisfying. The aim of this explorato...

La biofilia è un costrutto psicologico scoperto dal biologo americano E.O. Wilson (1984) dell’Università di Harvard che la definì “l’innata affiliazione emotiva che gli esseri umani stabiliscono con altri organismi viventi” (Wilson 1993, p. 31). Per quanto intuitivamente comprensibile, questa definizione di biofilia è piuttosto vaga, perché è diffi...

Biophilic Design is an applied science that takes into account the most recent findings on the relationship between Man and Nature to render artificial spaces more coherent with innate human biophilia. It is well known that the application of Biophilic Design reduces stress, stimulates creativity and clear thinking, improves physical and psychologi...

This mini review looks at the affective bonds and the cognitive benefits at the basis of the relationship between human beings and Nature, as a solid starting point for an environmental education program aimed to foster naturalist intelligence. Evidences from studies of years of joint research in evolutionary biology and environmental psychology fi...

This study investigates the relationship between the level to which a person feels connected to Nature and that person’s ability to perceive the restorative value of a natural environment. We assume that perceived restorativeness may depend on an individual’s connection to Nature and this relationship may also vary with the biophilic quality of the...

Le strategie progettuali volte a realizzare l'edificio nZE si concentrano soprattutto nella ricerca di materiali e di processi eco-compatibili, spesso trascurando la sostenibilità “cognitiva” dell’edificio. Questa lacuna deriva dalla scarsa conoscenza che in generale architetti e progettisti hanno della biofilia, il nostro legame con la Natura, leg...

Despite the name, current “green” architecture pays exclusive attention to being environmental friendly rather than being biophilic as well. Disregarding Nature in design is not just a matter of aesthetics but concerns also the quality of people’s lives. In order to achieve this, there is a need for a paradigm shift from “green” to “restorative” in...

This brief communication wants to draw greater attention to the role of physical environment in the psychological restoration process. Given the benefits deriving from contact with Nature, urban designers should also attend the human need for psychological restoration. According to the Attention Restoration Theory, performance, mood and well-being...

According to Stephen Kellert (1996; 1997), moral values provide one of the potential ways through which biophilia can be expressed. Without doubt, love for life (biophilia) goes together well with the moral value of nonviolence. But is the contrary also true? That is, does the ethical choice of nonviolence offer any evolutionary advantage? Biophili...

Biophilia is affected by the ability to focus on natural stimuli effortlessly, actually to be fascinated by Nature. Exposure to natural environments allows one's directed attention to rest and to restore from a state of mental fatigue. As we have reliably demonstrated in a precedent study (Visions for Sustainability 1, 31-38) mindfulness meditation...

Can the loving openness of human beings lead to “the liberation of qualities in animals that would otherwise remain hidden?” This observation made in 1959 by Aldo Capitini, the Italian philosopher and promoter of nonviolent theory and action, not only poses a question relative to neo-Darwinism, but it also offers a new and radical perspective on hu...

In this paper we address the complex and controversial issue of the possible commercialization of a genetically engineered (GE) salmon for human consumption: the AquAdvantage Salmon®, by one of the leading US aquaculture corporations, AquaBounty Technologies Inc (ABT). This analysis follows and deepens our reflections on the notion of impact assess...

The manifesto of our new international scientific journal: Visions for Sustainability.

In this paper we address the complex and controversial issue of the possible commercialization of a genetically engineered (GE) salmon for human consumption: the AquAdvantage Salmon®, by one of the leading US aquaculture corporations, AquaBounty Technologies Inc (ABT). This analysis follows and deepens our reflections on the notion of impact assess...

Can the loving openness of human beings lead to “the liberation of qualities in animals that would otherwise remain hidden?” This observation made in 1959 by Aldo Capitini, the Italian philosopher and promoter of nonviolent theory and action, not only poses a question relative to neo-Darwinism, but it also offers a new and radical perspective on hu...

This study investigates three issues concerned with psychological restoration in children, specifically whether children perceive the difference between the restorative value of a natural and a built environment; whether the perception of restorativeness affects children’s attentional performance; how children feel to be connected with Nature. To t...

Biophilia – the innate tendency of human beings to focus on and to affiliate with natural life emotionally – occurs spontaneously in children. In this study we hypothesized that the development of biophilia is facilitated by an active silence training (AST). In AST silent observation is used as a means to achieve self-knowledge, while games are use...

Biophilia is affected by the ability to focus on natural stimuli effortlessly, actually to be fascinated by Nature. Exposure to natural environments allows one's directed attention to rest and to restore from a state of mental fatigue. As we have reliably demonstrated in a precedent study (Visions for Sustainability 1, 31-38) mindfulness meditation...

Affective Ecology is the branch of ecology that deals with our connecting with Nature. Its epistemological statute is interdisciplinary and founded upon two scientific hypotheses: the biophilia hypothesis and the theory of multiple intelligences. Biophilia can be defined as a set of innate learning rules that have evolved in the human species to en...

Biophilia – the innate tendency of human beings to focus on and to affiliate with natural life emotionally – occurs spontaneously in school children. In this study we hypothesized that the development of biophilia is facilitated by an active silence training (AST). In AST silent observation is used as a means to achieve self-knowledge, while games...

Affective Ecology is the branch of ecology that deals with our connecting with Nature. Its epistemological statute is interdisciplinary and founded upon two scientific hypotheses: the biophilia hypothesis and the theory of multiple intelligences. Biophilia can be defined as a set of innate learning rules that have evolved in the human species to en...

Affective Ecology is a new branch of ecology concerned with emotional relationships between human beings and the rest of the living world. The basic instinct that guides the evolution and maturation of a well-tuned relationship with the living world seems to be biophilia, our innate tendency to focus upon life and life-like forms and, in some insta...

Global changes such as urbanisation, new ways of travelling, new information and communication technologies are causing radical changes in the relationships between human beings and the environment we are both a part of and depend on. Relationships which – according to a multiplicity of researches in various fields – are crucially important. Scienc...

Genetically modified (GM) crops under open field conditions are a complex and controversial issue. Ecologists are discussing about the possibility that a transgene belonging to GM plants could spread to native populations through a process known as introgression the stable incorporation of a gene in the host genome able to generate a differentiated...

Encounters with living animals are most important in building positive attitudes and emotions towards wildlife. Because few mammals can be safely and easily located in wilderness for educational purpose, marmots are proposed for candidate in animal related environmental education. Both indoor and outdoors activities are described and experimented w...

In this paper, we report some reflections on science and education, in relation to teaching and research in the field of complex and controversial socio-environmental issues. Starting from an examination of the literature on the epistemological aspects of the science of controversial issues, and introducing the perspective of complexity, the articl...

In the AH-130 hepatoma, a poorly differentiated tumor, maintained by weekly transplantations in rats, a low percentage of cells spontaneously underwent apoptosis, mainly during the transition from logarithmic- to stationary-growth phase. It was possible to induce massive apoptosis of cells by treating them with clofibrate, a peroxisome proliferator...

The T160 protein belongs to the HMG-1 box protein family and preferentially binds to non-B-DNA conformations with no sequence specificity. Its exact role has yet to be defined, though it seems to participate in processes involving DNA, such as replication, transcription and recombination. We have used an antisense RNA strategy to investigate its ro...

Clofibrate, for a long time in use as a hypolipidemic drug, is a well known peroxisomal proliferator (PP) and hepatocarcinogen in rodents. We show here that in vitro 1 mM clofibrate induces a rapid and massive death of rat AH-130 hepatoma cells. Cell death was prominent already after 4 h of treatment, with a characteristic ;apoptotic' pattern by co...

Exponentially growing L929 cells were continuously exposed to 1 or 10 microM etoposide (VP-16). The effects of such treatment on cell growth, cycle distribution, morphology, and selected biochemical events were examined. DNA synthesis rates were markedly decreased and the protein/DNA ratio increased (unbalanced growth). Growth was blocked, with mos...

4-Hydroxynonenal (HNE) is a highly reactive aldehyde produced by lipid peroxidation of cellular membranes that inhibits growth and induces differentiation in HL-60 cells. Its mechanisms of action were investigated by analyzing the cell cycle distribution and the appearance of differentiated phenotypes in HL-60 cells. Data obtained by exposing cells...

The role of mitogen-activated calcium influx from the extracellular medium in the control of cell proliferation was studied in Balb-c 3T3 fibroblasts. Stimulation of serum-deprived, quiescent cells with 10% foetal calf serum (FCS) induced a long-lasting (up to 70 min) elevation of intracellular free calcium concentration ([Ca2+]i). Both the sustain...

The cell cycle of an arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus,Glomus versiforme, was determined by flow cytometric analysis of nuclei isolated from spores and mycorrhizal roots of leek, and by immunogold staining after bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) uptake by DNA. The aims of our work were to establish: (i) whether there are changes in ploidy during fungal growth a...

Treatment with VP-16 (1-50 microM) or excess thymidine (5 mM) caused a block of L cells at different steps in their progression through the replicative cycle. The arrest was followed by an asynchronous process of cell death that conformed to criteria for apoptosis. Careful monitoring of this process in the whole cell population by flow cytometry sh...