Since 2003, in the municipalities of the Terre di Mezzo (San Cassiano, Botrugno, Nociglia, Surano, Sanarica, Supersano, Giuggianello, Scorrano, Maglie, and Muro Leccese), the LUA – Laboratorio Urbano Aperto has supported a process of regeneration by proposing new models for territorial development.

The project of an interconnection network among smaller towns within the Park weaves together the need to safeguard and protect the area’s historical and cultural heritage with the defense of an economic function such as agriculture, which has shaped the history of economic development in this area. It is a project that takes into account an increasingly broad social demand, in search of open, accessible spaces rich in significant cultural values, all within the context of a rural area disadvantaged in comparison with the two coastal systems.

Within this broader project, Creature dei Paduli was born in 2014.
Twenty-five children, residents of the area adjacent to the Park, were involved in a cooperative storytelling game, thus creating a new mythology that would make them protagonists and custodians of these places—“little active citizens.” The set design, characters, and events of this partly fantastical yet very real realm were developed in collaboration with DEM, while we were entrusted with the task of designing a platform capable of holding everything together.

In designing the Creature website, we realized that the stories, the places, and the very natural character of the Paduli Park could be brought together by a new geography; that this new design needed to be in some way fantastical, but also able to tell visitors a piece of reality and be functional to the creation of real itineraries. After all, the Bosco di Ulivi Secolari dei Paduli was real, known since the 17th century for the production of lamp oil, whose price was traded from Naples to London, as if in modern times it had been listed on the stock exchange and used for the public lighting of major European capitals.

Thus, we also decided to design a new map of the Paduli, inspired by old cadastral maps—yellowed by time, magical in their colors and in their representation of places that have rarely become anything else.