Mauro Bellei is an architect, artist and designer. He started working as a set designer for the theatre, and then, together with Andrea Vernier, he held seminars on television set design at the Faculty of Architecture in Florence, and as an adjunct professor he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. He has held workshops for children throughout Italy. Bellei is the creator of Accipicchiadesign, a workshop created with the aim of producing objects and educational games that stimulate research, design, creativity and curiosity in children and adults. Occhiolino Edizioni is the name of his publishing house that caters for both young and older readers. A concise collection of his works, which weave together architecture, scenography and design, can be found in Il progetto dello scoiattolo (Corraini, 2011). In 2021, he won the Andersen Prize for the Protagonist of Children's Culture.