Immersive technologies are increasingly acknowledged as powerful tools in sustainability education, capable of fostering deeper engagement and emotional resonance. This study investigates the potential of 360° VR storytelling to enhance learning through embodied knowledge, attitudinal change, and emotional awareness. Conducted within the EMOTIONAL project, the research explores a first-person narrative told from the perspective of a ceramic object rooted in Italian cultural heritage, designed to facilitate meaningful, affective learning. A hybrid assessment framework was developed and validated, combining subjective self-report tools (including attitudinal scales, semantic differential analysis, and engagement metrics) with objective physiological measures, specifically Electrodermal Activity (EDA). Sixty participants, including students and entrepreneurs, experienced the immersive narrative, and a subset underwent biometric tracking to evaluate the effectiveness of the experience. Findings show that immersive storytelling can effectively enhance emotional and cognitive engagement, producing shifts in semantic interpretation, self-perceived knowledge, and attitudes toward material culture. A convergence of high emotional engagement, embodied learning, and technology acceptance was observed, although individual differences emerged based on prior experience and disciplinary background. EDA data offered complementary insights, identifying specific moments of heightened arousal during the narrative. The study demonstrates that emotionally driven immersive narratives (supported by integrated assessment methods) can make abstract sustainability values more tangible and personally resonant, thereby fostering more reflective and relational approaches to sustainable consumption and production.

Immersive technologies are increasingly acknowledged as powerful tools in sustainability education, capable of fostering deeper engagement and emotional resonance. This study investigates the potential of 360° VR storytelling to enhance learning through embodied knowledge, attitudinal change, and emotional awareness. Conducted within the EMOTIONAL project, the research explores a first-person narrative told from the perspective of a ceramic object rooted in Italian cultural heritage, designed to facilitate meaningful, affective learning. The present study addresses the following research questions: RQ1 Can 360° VR story-living narrations effectively promote embodied learning and semantic and attitudinal shifts in the context of sustainability education? RQ2 What added insights can be gained from integrating subjective assessments with physiological measures? To this end, a hybrid assessment framework was developed and validated, combining subjective self-report tools (including attitudinal scales, semantic differential analysis, and engagement metrics) with objective physiological measures, specifically Electrodermal Activity (EDA). Sixty participants, including students and entrepreneurs, experienced the immersive narrative, and a subset underwent physiological tracking to evaluate the effectiveness of the experience. The findings show that immersive storytelling can enhance emotional and cognitive engagement, producing shifts in semantic interpretation, self-perceived knowledge, and attitudes toward material culture. A convergence of high emotional engagement, embodied learning, and technology acceptance was observed, although individual differences emerged based on prior experience and disciplinary background. EDA data offered complementary insights, identifying specific moments of heightened arousal during the narrative. The study demonstrates that emotionally driven immersive narratives (supported by integrated assessment methods) can make abstract sustainability values more tangible and personally resonant, thereby fostering more reflective and relational approaches to sustainable consumption and production.

The advent of the technological revolution and the current aspiration to reconnect with the land define possibilities for thinking new connections between individuals and communities. These relations are geared towards developing regenerative endeavors and methods, ultimately leading to the establishment of collective well-being. Within rural environments, there is a propensity to develop strategies that include substantial lifestyle changes. These strategies operate employing practices and actions that, through co-design, aim to revitalize the local area. Through different approaches, the concepts of value and trust are nurtured, facilitating collaborative design of possible futures and transitional pathways to them. The objective of this study is to introduce a theoretical framework that encompasses the distinctive methodologies and actions inherent to the realm of design. This framework is intended to become a guide for implementing inventive processes, with the goal of revitalizing areas that are struggling with both social neglect and environmental deterioration. It lays the foundation for the research of strategic and co-design methodologies on which the autonomous research group co-founded by three of the authors is working. The activities conducted until now increased the experiences of relations with communities of place, creating meaningful opportunities, but also highlighting limitations and difficulties in intercommunity relations.

Recent and continuous innovations in the field of extended reality and, in particular, augmented reality, are able to revolutionize different aspects of the reference market sectors. At the same time, a constant evolution in the area of artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning, if combined with the aforementioned innovations, allows to conceive solutions able to shape new ways to inform, to improve skills and to spend time. The ability to simulate contexts, environments, actions and emotions and the possibility to use the data generated by the simulations in a disruptive way permit to imagine and create learning and strengthening paths.This developing research has been carried out within the Interdepartmental Laboratory EDME (Environmental Design Multisensory Experience), which belongs to the Design Department of Politecnico di Milano. It has been conducted by investigating the state of the art of augmented reality and artificial intelligence technologies, highlighting interesting and highly innovative case studies; from this first phase we moved on to analyze the sport sector in which an important potential for future development was recognized. The last part of the first phase of this research project consisted in the elaboration of a concept for an enabling technological system and a business model with a high innovation coefficient, whose realization is hypothesized for the year 2030.It is intended to demonstrate how a design operation, which started from emerging technologies and a sector of high interest and assumed a scenario of use over ten years, is not only extremely interesting but also, and above all, useful to consciously predict and accompany the aforementioned technological development.