Italy

Truth is never told in a loud voice, it doesn't need to shout. How iconic architecture is when it tells of beauty, just whispering its story.

Thomas Allocca

Quercia Bianca

Castiglione del Lago

Luxury residential gated park on about 4 ha, in Umbria, the green heart of Italy. The luxury villas will be built on the southern side of the Trasimeno Lake, in the territory of Castiglione del Lago, one of the most beautiful medieval towns of Italy. Private gardens, surveillance service, tennis court, pool.

New Nursery School "Gianni Rodari"

Massalengo

client > Town of Massalengo, province of Lodi, Italy    __    funder > European Union, Funding Program Next Generation EU    __    funding project > National Plan for Recovery and Resilience (PNRR-M4-C1-INV1.1)     __    project > HPDB/DBING + R3Architetti     __    general contractor > Sabino Dicataldo Costruzioni    __    wooden roof design > White Oak Arkitecture and Nuove Architetture    __    wooden structures construction > Nuove Architetture, Nov 2024 - Nov 2025    __    roof area > about 1500 square meters    __    volume of timber > 140 cubic meters for pillars and beams, 100 cubic meters for structural walls, 80 cubic meters for roof    __    total cost > about 6 M €

drawing by R3Architetti

under construction

2017-2025

Villa AM, Palermo  |  Attic Riviello, Salerno  |  Villa Filograna, Lecce  |  Villa Bamonte, Salerno  |  Villa DeSantis, Frosinone  |  Apartment Quaracchi, Firenze  |  Villa Colaprisca, Roma  |  Primavera Park, Napoli  |  Villa Di Naro, Napoli  |  Villa Dramisino, Salerno  |  Attic Onore, Napoli  |  Villa Miagor, Salerno  |  Apartment Falcone, Salerno  |  Villa Cypress, Salerno  |  QB Residential Park, Salerno  |  Villa Migliaccio, Frosinone  |  Villa Perrini, Frosinone  |  Villa Finsinger, Terni  |  Villa Ricci, Padova  |  Villa Zanè, Roma  |  Villa Diaz Della Vittoria Pallavicini, Roma  |  Castle von Liechtenstein, Brescia  |  Villa Beretta, Brescia  |  Medical Center AstraMed, Frosinone  |  B&B Cannella, Salerno  |  Studio Palumbo, Salerno  |  Studio Mascolo, Salerno  |  Clinic Fonte, Salerno  |  Hotel and Restaurant Mojo, Salerno  |  Hotel Paradiso, Salerno  |  Hotel and Restaurant Collespinoso, Frosinone  |  Hotel and Restaurant Raphael, Salerno  |  Church Sacro Cuore, Napoli  |  Other Size Gallery, Milano  |  Garden Fiocco, Roma  |  Lightness Garden, Roma  |  Garden Miagor, Salerno  |  Ciku Bamboo Park, Roma  |  Garden DeSantis, Frosinone

Medieval Archetypes for Modern Luxury Furniture

White Oak Arkitecture designs and produce exclusive high-end furniture, mainly using the highest quality of North American white oak (Quercus alba) and ash (Fraxinus excelsior). Inspired by medieval archetypes, mixed with golden proportion and arboreal geometries, our furniture aim to reproduce sacred harmonies, rooted in the Keltic, Norse, and Italian Middle Ages. Our furniture do not use any metal screw or nail, or industrial preservatives, just wooden joints and natural oils.

Table Norway is very minimalist, but based on a complex sequential dry-joint system, self-standing, without any support of metal plates and screws. Made of prime quality of American hardwoods, without any paint, just natural oil spread by hand, this table is the essence of our design vision and mission. The structural system is inspired to a medieval sequential overlapping and hooking joint system, reported in the Norwegian langhuser and stavkirker. All the elements are in massive timber, building the whole table in sequence (posts>beams>top), and desmantling it in the reverse way.The table can be customized in size and materials, up to a size of 400 x 400 cm. The top can be customized, in wood, crystal, with tarsia, with Italian ceramic tiles.

The Luxury of Wood

In December 2011, my first meeting with Paolo Portoghesi happened by chance. We were on the same flight back to Italy, I from New York, and he and his wife, Giovanna, from Frankfurt. We were seated in the same row, with Paolo by the window, Giovanna in the middle, and me on the aisle. Recognizing Paolo, I introduced myself, honored to be in their company and to meet in person one of the European masters of organic architecture. We spoke about wooden architecture, trees, medieval spirituality, and archetypes. Paolo recalled my name, appeared into an interview by his magazine Abitare La Terra, six years earlier, an article about me as theorist of the tree-centric architecture. Hours passed like minutes, and we only stopped talking because the aircraft was landing in Rome. We met again months later at their home in Calcata. He wanted to see the prototype of the joint system that I used for the Norway Table. We talked all day about wooden architecture and my theory about tree-centric architecture as the foundation of sustainable architecture. And before I left, Paolo said, "It is strange, Thomas, that at my old age, after so many projects, books, conferences, I still have regrets... and one of them now, talking to you, is that I underestimated the potential of wood, used so rarely compared to the illusions of concrete and steel. Architecture needs more wood, because it needs more humble architects, too much focused on noisy ego, while architecture should be silent beauty."