I built my first arboreal architecture in Ireland, in a 300 year-old ash, on the property of Paddy Fogarty, in the village of Ballinderry, on Lake Derg, Tipperary County. It was just a terrace, built using waste timber from a building site where I was working for the architect Antony John Murphy, whose studio was based in Thurles. In that majestic tree, at four meters above the ground level, the sunset was different, the landscape was different. Perspectives were not only horizontal, but they were inspiring vertical ambitions. The intimacy with the tree and the surrounding forest was new, but familiar. I was there every night, at sunset, for months. After a couple of weeks, two giant crows started to stay with me, without any fear, and I learned that when wooden architecture becomes arboreal, it makes possible an intimate dialogue with Nature. Whispering architecture.
