Observatory on Environment, Land, and Space​​

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Sustainability and biodiversity: respect for ecosystems in line with the One Health approach (Wildlife Conservation Society), which recognises the interconnection between human, animal, and plant health, promoting cooperation and responsibility on both a personal and a social level.

 

Research areas:

• Environmental impact on health (air, water, noise, and electromagnetic pollution; intensive farming; use of fertilisers; deforestation)

• Climate change (cyclical nature of the phenomenon and reflections on human causation)

• Happy Degrowth (conscious consumption of energy, water, and food; waste production and management; repair and reuse; waste reduction; sustainable mobility; volunteering, community, and sharing; decarbonisation; energy transition)

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Habitability.

In addition to research and study on environmental issues of sustainability and biodiversity, this Observatory also reflects on the concept of inhabiting spaces—how we can bring space into places and thought into form (body, dwelling).

 

Philosopher and essayist Andrea Tagliapietra reminds us: 

“Space is thought and measured, but places are inhabited.

Space is crossed; places are dwelt in.

Space is the abstract; the place is the concrete.

Yet a place is not only a determined space, defined by precise coordinates.

A place has to do with memory, emotions, and desire.

Like Calvino’s city of Ersilia, places are a fabric woven of relationships.

Places belong to lived history, just as space belongs to measured time.

While places are recognised—hated and loved—spaces are simply measured.

Thus, places are largely figures of difference and quality, while spaces are those of uniformity and quantity.

In places, the original meaning of gathering and uniting prevails; in space, that of interval—and therefore separation, boundary, and conflict.

Even if, by law, I can give you space or deny it, it is only in a place that I can welcome you. It is only here, therefore, that hospitality can take place.”

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Research areas:

• How to bring the soul into the environments in which we live

• How to relate to materials, surfaces, colours, and forms as physical extensions of ourselves—fundamental entities with which we cultivate a relationship of cohabitation and mutual enrichment

• How to give life to matter, and allow matter, in turn, to enliven us

• How to develop and appreciate the ability to consciously choose how to move within our environments, how to know them, respect them, and enhance them in an experience of mutual transformation

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Conferences and Information Meetings:

• Green building

• Bio-heating

• Renewable energies (biomass, solar thermal and photovoltaic energy)

• Electromagnetic pollution

• Water waste and its potential uses

• Phytodepuration of wastewater

• Waste disposal and recycling

• Short supply chains and zero-mile food

• Permaculture and synergistic agriculture

• Landscape and urban design