In Lunano, within the rural landscapes of the Marche region, What the Stones Whisper rises six metres above a ridgeline, echoing the ancient stone towers that punctuate the surrounding territory. A contemporary reinterpretation of the Torre Lunano, the installation translates the imagery of masonry construction into a lightweight timber architecture: eight triangulated frames form a minimal structural system, while ten layers of shingles suspended from jute ropes create a moving envelope animated by wind and light.
Designed and built in two weeks as part of the Fe.M – Festival di Microarchitettura, using limited resources and self-construction, the tower turns constructive constraints into an architectural language. Seen from afar, it becomes a new landmark within the landscape; experienced up close, it reveals itself as a sensitive, acoustic and traversable architecture, where the movement of the shingles, shifting shadows and successive frames guide the gaze from the surrounding landscape towards the sky.
Between the permanence of stone and the fragility of timber, What the Stones Whisper explores an architecture that is at once monumental and ephemeral, in which material, wind and the visitor’s body become integral parts of the project.
Territorial Approach
Located in Lunano, within the rural landscape of the Marche region, the tower stands alongside a path regularly used by local residents, near a picnic table overlooking the town. The path connects, among other places, the Monte Illuminati Convent and the Torre Lunano, two centuries-old stone structures that punctuate the surrounding hilltops and stand as quiet markers of an ordinary heritage deeply rooted in the landscape. Taking its place in turn along a ridgeline, with unobstructed views across the territory, the tower enters into dialogue with this network of sacred, military and vernacular architectures scattered across the hills of the Marche. Rather than seeking to reproduce them, it offers a contemporary interpretation, becoming a new landmark within the landscape and inviting walkers to once again notice these ancient presences that quietly structure the territory.
Formal Approach
What the Stones Whisper offers a contemporary reinterpretation of the Torre Lunano, whose state of ruin and recent structural reinforcement prompted a reflection on the relationships between fragility, permanence and presence within the landscape. Standing six metres high, the tower draws upon the image of scaffolding traditionally used in the construction of stone buildings through its timber structure. Its shingle façades, laid out in a pattern reminiscent of masonry, are suspended from jute ropes and animated by the wind. This moving skin contrasts with the geometry and stability of the structure, while the crown and the doors remain the only fixed elements, containing and defining the moving envelope. Through its proportions, the slenderness of its elements and its economy of construction, the tower adopts a contemporary architectural language while evoking a more archaic and universal imaginary, echoing certain ceremonial forms found in animist traditions.
The Festival
The project was developed as part of the Fe.M – Festival di Microarchitettura, an international architecture competition held in Italy, near Urbino. The festival gives six winning projects the opportunity to move from design to construction, favouring self-build methods and imposing a limited quantity of timber. This material constraint becomes an actual design tool, while the different sites proposed invite each project to establish a specific relationship with the urban or natural landscapes in which they are situated. The festival also extends the architectural experience through artistic collaborations, such as the performance created this year by dancer Aurora Profili in dialogue with the work. Architecture thus becomes the setting for a collective experience at the intersection of construction, landscape and performance.
The Sensory Experience
The tower is gradually discovered through distance and the movement of the body. Seen from afar, its elevated position and golden hue, close to that of the surrounding wheat fields, allow it to almost merge with the landscape. As one approaches, its apparent stillness is contradicted by the movement of the shingles, which catch the light, lift in the wind and produce a continuous clicking against the structure, accompanied by the sound of air passing through the gaps. The changing patterns of light and shadow transform the tower throughout the day into a true solar clock. Two doors positioned opposite one another extend the lines of the landscape and frame the distant hills, while physically inviting passage. Their narrowness induces a slow, compressed movement before entering the interior, where the experience is reversed: the visitor becomes enveloped by shadows and shifting light, while the gaze is gradually drawn towards the sky. Open at the top, the tower becomes a vertical frame for the clouds, while the successive bracing planes act like an architectural diaphragm, progressively narrowing and widening the field of vision.
Construction
The tower was built over a period of two weeks, with the participation of seven amateur builders, three of whom were involved full-time. From cutting and drilling the timber to fabricating the frames and the linear shingle modules, assembled in an open-air workshop, and finally erecting the prefabricated elements directly on site, the construction process became a true test of the design principles. The building process required precise consideration of the weight of each element, the handling capacity of one, two or three people, the constraints of working at height, as well as the organisation of repetitive production. This direct experience of material and craft turned the construction site into an extension of the architectural project: every detail, every assembly sequence and every movement was conceived in response to the physical realities of construction.
Foundations
The tower rests on a shallow foundation designed to almost completely disappear into the landscape. Two four-metre-long timber beams, arranged along the direction of the path, are complemented by two perpendicular elements forming an eight-armed cross. Each arm supports a triangular frame and thus forms one of the tower’s eight points of support. The whole system is braced by a network of timber battens forming a continuous platform, anchored to the ground by vertical steel reinforcement bars. Once backfilled and covered with a thin layer of soil, this horizontal structure becomes almost invisible: the tower appears to emerge directly from the ground while actually resting on a lightweight system that distributes loads and ensures stability without relying on a heavy or permanent foundation.
Structure
The structure is made from a single material and a repeated section: 50 × 60 mm pine battens. Eight triangular frames, rising to a height of six metres, are assembled from vertical posts, diagonals and regularly spaced cross members, progressively transforming these simple elements into rigid frames. Where required, the timber pieces are extended through half-lap or paired timber joints, while the frames are assembled in pairs by overlapping the elements, creating a succession of three-dimensional nodes whose rigidity relies less on sophisticated detailing than on the multiplication of contacts and fixings. Cantilevered cross members, timber bracing boards and additional diagonals provide lateral cohesion and resistance to torsion. The stability of the tower therefore emerges from a logic of accumulation: a multitude of small elements, triangulations and repeated connections combine to produce a structure capable of rising and stiffening through its own geometry.
Envelope
The envelope consists of ten successive layers of timber shingles, forming a discontinuous and deliberately mobile skin. With a constant thickness of 25 mm, the boards are fixed at their upper edge at two points using jute rope, allowing each element a degree of freedom. Their dimensions vary according to their height on the tower, from one-metre-long elements at the lower levels to 50 cm shingles above, completed by a fixed crown. This variation creates an irregular rhythm across the façade and differentiates the behaviour of each layer in response to the wind. The envelope is therefore conceived not as a sealed and immobile wall, but as a dynamic membrane: the shingles move, the gaps change, and the wind becomes a perceptible component of the architecture.
