Collectif MAGMA's Wind-Moved Timber Tower Rises Over Lunano

More than 500 timber shingles hang from jute ropes on a six-meter tower in Lunano, Italy, and they move with the wind. The installation, titled What the Stones Whisper, was designed and built by Collectif MAGMA in two weeks for the Fe.M – Festival di Microarchitettura. It stands along a local walking path on the ridge of the Lunano hills, in Italy's Marche region, and reinterprets the nearby Torre Lunano and the stone structures scattered across the surrounding landscape.

The structure is economical in both material and method. Eight triangulated timber frames form the tower, built from 50 × 60 mm pine battens assembled through repeated connections and bracing. Ten layers of timber shingles hang from jute ropes to create a discontinuous envelope. Their changing position produces shifting patterns of light and shadow while allowing air and sound to pass through the structure.

The tower does not close itself off from the landscape. Two narrow doors frame views toward the surrounding hills and lead into the tower's open interior. Successive structural frames gradually direct the gaze upward toward the sky, while the moving shingles create a changing acoustic and visual environment. From the top, the installation frames the vast landscape of the Regional Park of Sasso Simone and Simoncello.

The construction process matched the project's low-tech logic. A small team of amateur builders fabricated the timber frames and shingle modules in an open-air workshop before assembling them on site. The tower rests on a shallow timber foundation designed to remain largely concealed beneath the ground, keeping the structure's footprint light and reversible.

Collectif MAGMA describes the project as a dialogue between permanence and temporality. The practice uses repetition, lightweight construction, and a movable envelope to reinterpret the permanence of the region's stone architecture through a temporary timber structure. The result sits somewhere between a bell tower and a military tower — a wooden landmark with a shifting facade that emerges against the distant vernacular structures of the hills.

Project information

• Name: What the Stones Whisper
• Architect: Collectif MAGMA (@we_are_magma_)
• Location: Lunano, Italy

The installation demonstrates how limited timber, self-build methods, and a repeated structural system can produce a landmark at festival scale — and how a temporary structure can hold its own next to architecture built to last centuries.