Bracing Biophilia: When biophilic design promotes pupil’s attentional performance, perceived restorativeness and affiliation with Nature

Giuseppe Barbiero (), Rita Berto, Alice Venturella and Nicola Maculan
Additional contact information
Giuseppe Barbiero: Università della Valle d’Aosta–Université de la Vallée d’Aoste
Rita Berto: Università della Valle d’Aosta–Université de la Vallée d’Aoste
Alice Venturella: Università della Valle d’Aosta–Université de la Vallée d’Aoste
Nicola Maculan: Università della Valle d’Aosta–Université de la Vallée d’Aoste

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2025, vol. 27, issue 9, No 1, 20417-20431

Abstract: Abstract 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 performance and affiliation with Nature. We compared a conventional learning environment with two Nature-based environments made according to biophilic design and the Biophilic Quality Index (BQI). The experimental observations spanned three school years; they were carried out within a conventional learning environment in the first year and in a biophilic designed one in the next two. Measurements, that is the administration of the Perceived Restorativeness Scale-children, the Continuous Performance test, and the Connectedness to Nature Scale-children, were deployed at regular intervals at three different times (autumn, winter, spring) of each school year. Results show that learning environments with biophilic design, in addition to being preferred and perceived as more restorative, are more effective in supporting pupils' attentional performance than conventional learning environments and, over time, strengthen the feeling of affiliation with Nature. A BQI certified biophilic design learning environment turns out to be the best of all indoor environments and just below the outdoor learning environment used as a comparison of biophilic design indoor environment. Although the objective limitation of this study is the number of pupils, the trend appears clear and cannot be attributed to pupils’ cognitive maturation processes. This case study allows us to appreciate the importance of the restorative learning environments with biophilic design capable of supporting the learning process and strengthening the affiliation with Nature.

Keywords: Affiliation with nature; Attentional performance; Biophilic design; Biophilic Quality Index (BQI); Innovative Learning Environment (ILE); Restorative environments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10668-021-01903-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:endesu:v:27:y:2025:i:9:d:10.1007_s10668-021-01903-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10668

DOI: 10.1007/s10668-021-01903-1

Access Statistics for this article

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development is currently edited by Luc Hens

More articles in Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().