"The Station had been built on an urban grid designed by Japanese architect Kenzo Tange as part of an upgrade of the city’s infrastructure.

Kenzo Tange designed the Centro Direzionale and built a city very much in his own style, with reflective skyscrapers, a 1970s piazza, which did not work because it is so different from the rest of Naples.

One of the decisions of the project was to build the station with wood to create an organic contrast with the 1970s neighbourhood. The design of the new station was inspired by older areas of Naples.

Wood is a very light material that blends perfectly with the pre-existing structures: we used the concrete structures and columns and inserted new wooden columns into them. The steel part of the concrete matches to make the base of the new columns, and then the rest of the column is entirely made of wood.

The characteristic shape of the 10,000 sqm station is made of glued laminated timber. The width of the train tracks below is reflected in the width of the undulating vaults.

Vaults are a regular feature of the studio. It is an architectural device that works with most materials because historically, vaults were made first with stone and then with ceramic, and today it is effective with wood, especially glulam because it can be moulded into any shape you want beam to be. The vaulted ceilings are also a nod to classic train stations that are often vaulted, while the shape of the station was intended to create the feeling of a “walk in the woods”.

In a way, what we tried to achieve is a kind of new organic, flowing piazza, as if we were walking through a forest when we are actually in such an artificial business centre".