Designing Biophilic Immersive Virtual Reality Work Environments: Guidelines and Tools

The advent of Industry 5.0 signifies a fundamental shift in industrial practices, placing a stronger emphasis on human well-being, environmental sustainability, and the integration of technology. In contrast to Industry 4.0’s focus on automation and efficiency, Industry 5.0 prioritizes the human worker as a central figure in driving innovation and performance. Within this context, Extended Reality technologies—encompassing Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality—play a pivotal role in applications such as training, procedural guidance, and human-machine interactions. Immersive virtual environments now offer opportunities for immersive remote meetings, training simulations, and product design, emphasizing the need for environments that not only foster efficiency but also worker well-being. This thesis explores the integration of biophilic design into immersive virtual reality work environments to promote the holistic well-being of workers, aligning with the human-centric goals of Industry 5.0. Biophilic design—grounded in the Biophilia Hypothesis— suggests that incorporating natural elements into workspaces can enhance both physical and psychological health. While biophilic principles have been applied in physical spaces, their integration into immersive environments remains underexplored. Since the literature does not provide standard criteria for designing a virtual environment with biophilic design, this thesis investigates how nature-inspired elements, such as plants, nature paintings, and natural textures, can be systematically incorporated to improve emotional well-being, cognitive performance, and user engagement without compromising task performance. The thesis is framed within the context of our PRIN-awarded project which explores the synergy between biophilic design, extended reality, and artificial intelligence for creating human-centric industrial workspaces. A mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, is used to evaluate user experience and derive validated design guidelines to embellish virtual environments with biophilic design. The thesis contributes to investigate the impact of different biophilic variables on human attention and well-being in immersive virtual workspaces both psychologically and physiologically, and leads to the definition of a set of validated design guidelines that provide practical insights for integrating biophilic elements into virtual environments, also exploring the potential contribution of artificial intelligence. A key outcome of this research is the development of a scientifically grounded, modular testbed for biophilic immerisive virtual environments assessment. This testbed enables continuous experimentation, evaluation, and optimization of biophilic design strategies over time, serving as an open, extensible platform for the entire scientific community. To this end, the research includes the development of an industrial assembly task of scalable, endless duration for long-term assessments, graphical interfaces used to apply biophilic design in accordance with the guidelines, a framework for authoring customized biophilic elements, and ergonomic assessment tool. The research culminates in a comprehensive testbed that allows users to enrich immersive virtual environments with biophilic elements, and perform the endless assembly task. Overall, this doctoral research supports the human-centric transformation of digital workspaces in the age of Industry 5.0, offering both theoretical and practical contributions to the design of future industrial systems that prioritize human well-being.