Arboreal Arkitecture

Beauty can be defined as a merely subjective matter, existing only into the eyes of the observer, which means that beauty doesn't exist as an objective reality but it depends by our personal perception of the world. On the contrary, if we define beauty as an objective reality, existing in the universe independently by our capability to recognize and to appreceate it, it means that beauty is not an intellectual invention but it exists since ever and it will exist forever, universally. In reality, history of beauty changes with the history of things, which are the mutable shape of time, but no one will never unrecognize into a tree the universal beauty of nature. I like to define treehouses as "arboreal architecture", the architecture that exalts the beauty of nature through its universally recognized element per excellence, the tree. And, if beauty of trees is the unmutable shape of time, the beauty of architecture must pass through the archetype of the treehouse as arboreal architecture.

Sustainable development has brought architecture back home, back to its original places and materials, back to woods and timber, but also wooden architecture, to date considered as the most sustainable one, will not make possible to reach higher levels of architectural resilience if we will not pass from an almost still antropo-centric architecture to a tree-centric architecture. And treehouses are the archetype model of a tree-centric architecture, the architecture of Homo Arboreus.

The Irish Lesson

I have built my first treeterrace in Ireland, upon a 300 years-old ash in the land of my friend Paddy Fogarty, in the village Ballinderry, near Lake Derg, Tipperary County. I got his permission to build the terrace using waste timber from a building site where I was working for the architect A. J. Murphy based in Thurles. Upon that majestic tree, at four meters above the ground level, at the sunset I was capable to enjoy the miracle of the amazing landscapes towards Ballinderry, as I was a bird, and while the sun changed the guard with the moon, every evening a couple of giant crows were there with me, without being scared. A couple of days before my departure back to Italy, I was meditating upon the ash for my greeting to those wonderful places, and Paddy calls me from his car in the field and near the ash he says "Thomas, I was intentioned to cut down the ash for money, it has a really good timber, but now I can't do it anymore... your terrace has enriched the story of my wood without price, and with your friendship's memory". Honestly, it was not a special project, just an experiment for fun, but it was so perfectly integrated to the tree, so anonymous, to put man and nature in a very intimate dialogue, enriching the genius loci and saving the three centuries old ash tree from premature death.

After the Irish experience, I have started to design and build treehouses in collaboration with the Scottish Treehouse Company, then also by myself, being honored to have luxury clients. Prince Alexander von Liechtenstein and Princess Astrid Kohl, Prince and Duke Sigieri Diaz Della Vittoria Pallavicini, and the prestigious family Beretta of the Beretta's fire-arms industries. But every new project, small or luxury it has been, after my Irish terrace and Paddy's words, I have never forgetten the lesson: to create harmony between man and trees, passing from one to another world without uncomfortable energies, and the treehouse just the gate to allow the passage.

Most of times, treehouses are just the blatant story of ego-centric designers. On the contrary, a treehouse must be a luxury work of arboreal silent, capable to exalt the beauty of nature without scaring the birds. A treehouse must be arboreal poetry in shape of architecture.