[…] In the summer of 2021, Riccardo participated in the RestartApp ‘on-campus’ course organised by Fondazione Edoardo Garrone The prize money helped him get his project off the ground, by creating a portal that is a showcase (to help customers choose the Tipì they prefer), but also a management system offering the opportunity to book all the accommodation facilities belonging to the network.

When he imagined his tents, which resemble Native American tepees, Riccardo Arletti intended to set them up them along the Via degli Dei (the Way of the Gods), the itinerary connecting Bologna, the city where he studied, and Florence. “I love the mountains and walking, so for my Bachelor’s Degree I wrote an ‘experimental’ thesis – perhaps even too ambitious for a three-year course – which even included questionnaires and interviews”, he says. The Tipì project was conceived to respond to the ‘dissatisfaction’ detected by his surveys and deriving from the absence of any accommodation facilities along the route. As a matter of fact, also because this itinerary has become so popular, accommodation in the area is very scarсe (a need that Acatù, Lilith Meier’s mountain refuge in Monzuno, is also responding to).

Riccardo, who was born in Carpi in 1994, discussed his thesis in 2019. Soon after, “everything went on lockdown”. In the meantime, however, he couldn’t find anyone willing to rent a plot of land. So, when he built the first tepee his initial idea gradually developed into something different: a scattered glamping, a network of holiday farms and holiday homes offering the opportunity to sleep inside his furnished tent, carefully designed by Riccardo with Diego Scala, an engineer and a friend.