Born South. Moved South. Staying South.
I grew up in Cape Town and moved to Italy at twenty. I studied industrial psychology before I ever looked at a floor plan, though it never stopped me from mentally redecorating every room I walked into.
Thirty years in travel communication followed. I founded Viaggi di Architettura, an online tour operator built around architecture and design: 55 itineraries across the world, produced alongside documentaries, contributing to international magazines, always treating buildings as the subject rather than the backdrop. Then came brand and destination consulting with Can't Forget Italy, working for the Italian Ministry of Culture, regions, hotel chains, and more. I was privileged to work the length of the country and gain an education in Italian heritage that no guidebook could ever provide.
Now I invest in the South. I salvage forgotten structures and restore the Italian design pieces that go inside them. The psychology never left: I notice what a room does to a person before I notice what it looks like. Most hospitality gets that backwards.
Every project starts the same way: a building nobody wants. A latteria. A workshop. A gym that hadn't opened in years. What goes inside is just as deliberate: vintage Italian pieces, found and restored, never from a catalogue that could furnish someone else's project the same way.
My aim is to build what Ray Oldenburg calls third spaces: places that feel like they are strangely familiar the moment you walk in. An algorithm of volume, lighting, sound, natural materials, pre-owned furniture and innovative use of space.
Call it real estate, but with the accent on real.
Innovation changes how we work. But where do we go when we are done?
Smart cities, fast connections, new technology: all of it changes how the south works. But none of it answers a much older question: when the day is done, where does a person actually go? This project is one answer: small, slow, and built from what was already here.