The 22nd edition of the International Landscape Study Days, organised by Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche, will be held in Treviso, Italy, at the Palazzo Bomben auditorium, on 26 and 27 February 2026, 10 am-17 pm (and in live streaming on the YouTube Channel of the Fondazione Benetton), and will be dedicated to the theme: Healthscapes. Landscape, the Contemporary Meaning of Care, and the Fallacy of Wellbeing.
The International Landscape Study Days represent the key moment of reflection and public debate on the lines of research of the Fondazione Benetton and are structured in talks, debates and screenings. The programme is edited by Luigi Latini, director of Fondazione Benetton and professor of Landscape Architecture at Iuav University of Venice, and Simonetta Zanon, head of landscape research and projects of Fondazione Benetton.
The curators explain: “The neologism Healthscapes, combining the words “health” and “landscapes”, brings together a wide range of issues related to how landscapes, in different ways, affect the wellbeing and health of living beings. Consider, for example – and not only from an anthropocentric perspective – the healthiness or toxicity of air, water and soil, or the presence or absence, in cities, of spaces accessible to everyone for physical exercise and social interaction, for growing one’s own food or, simply, for being in contact with nature and enjoying its widely documented physical and psychological benefits. Places also affect health when their condition turns them into sources of disorientation in the face of the trivialization of the landscape and of real malaise due to the degradation of environments in which those who live there no longer recognise themselves. At a planetary level, we can consider the effects of climate on the health of living beings, and the impacts its variations have had throughout the history of life on Earth: all evidence of the connection between the health of the planet and that of its inhabitants, encapsulated perfectly by the One Health concept.
This “single” health is being put under intense strain – especially for the younger generations – also by the psychological consequences of being aware of the disastrous effects that human behaviour is having on the ecological emergency (eco-anxiety).
Within this framework, landscape design, at various scales – beginning with one’s own garden – plays a decisive role in responsibly shaping places dedicated to the care of our bodies and minds and, more fundamentally, in the creation of urban environments conceived for individual and collective wellbeing, inclusive of the animal, plant and mineral worlds, and oriented towards the radical rethinking that the current environmental crisis demands.”
Programme
Thursday 26th February
> h 10am – 10.15am
Introduction to the 2026 Study Days by curators Luigi Latini and Simonetta Zanon
> h 10.15am – 1pm
· One Health One Earth. Us and the Earth: a single destiny
Luisella Battaglia, Professor of Moral Philosophy and Bioethics at the University of Genoa and Suor Orsola Benincasa University in Naples
· Biophilia. The genetics and psychology of connections with nature
Giuseppe Barbiero, Professor of Biology and Ecopsychology, Head of GREEN LEAF – the Laboratory of Affective Ecology at the University of Valle D’Aosta
· One Health. The story of the Grave di Ciano del Montello, Treviso
Anna Pozzatello, General Practitioner, Medici per l’Ambiente (Doctors for the Environment, ISDE), Treviso
· Traumatic loss of sense of place and the healing power of water landscapes
Francesco Vallerani, Senior Researcher in Geography at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
> h 3pm – 5pm
· Healing spaces. Frailty, connections and the right to the city
Michela Pasquali, Landscape architect, Associazione Linaria ETS, Rome
· Healing parks
Cristina Imbroglini, Professor of Landscape Architecture, Department of Architecture and Design, Sapienza University of Rome
· Mindscapes. Therapeutic precincts and cultural welfare
Lucina Caravaggi, Professor of Landscape Architecture, Department of Architecture and Design, Sapienza University of Rome
> h 5.15pm
Melancholia, by Lars von Trier (Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, 2011, 130’)
Screening of the film, with an introduction by Marco Zuin (documentary filmmaker and director)
Friday 27th February
> h 10am – 1pm
· Climate change and mental health
Paolo Cianconi, Psychiatrist, Anthropologist, PhD in Neuroscience, Rome
· The bustle of urban biodiversity
Massimo Labra, Professor of General Botany at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Scientific Director of the National Biodiversity Future Center
· Gardens as a pharmakon? Mutual affection, ethnobotany and biopolitics
Andrea Di Salvo, Landscaper designer, editor, journalist, creator of virideblog.it
· Healing green spaces
Andrea Mati, Joint owner of the Mati 1909 nursery in Pistoia, expert designer of healing gardens
> h 3pm – 5pm
· Natural Health. The impact of design with nature on mental well-being in the city
Johanna Gibbons RDI, Founding Partner J&L Gibbons, London
· Taking care
Antonio Perazzi, Landscape architect, Milan
· Rethinking Healthscapes: adaptation, normativity, and the politics of care
Zaš Brezar, Landscape architect, founder of Landezine – Landscape Architecture Platform
Information
Free admission, no reservation required, access granted subject to capacity.
Simultaneous Italian/English/Italian translation will be available for all speeches.
Live streaming on the Foundation’s YouTube channel. For information: paesaggio@fbsr.it
The Landscape Study Days are devised by the Scientific Committee of the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche, they are coordinated by Luigi Latini (chairman of Scientific Committee) and Simonetta Zanon (landscape project).
Scientific committee: Giuseppe Barbera, agronomist, University of Palermo; Hervé Brunon, garden historian, André Chastel Centre, Paris, CNRS; Thilo Folkerts, landscape architect, 100Landschaftsarchitektur, Berlin; Anna Lambertini, architect and landscape architect, University of Firenze; Luigi Latini, Architect, Iuav University of Venice (Chairman); Monique Mosser, art historian, Advanced School of Architecture, Versailles, CNRS; Joan Nogué, geographer, University of Girona; Juan Manuel Palerm, architect, University of Las Palmas; José Tito Rojo, botanist, University of Granada.
