LA CITTÀ DI DÁPHNĒ. Mito | Metamorfosi | Progetto

The book explores the city as a dynamic, hybrid, and more-than-human condition through the interpretive lens of myth and metamorphosis. Moving across architecture, ecology, philosophy, anthropology, and visual culture, the book proposes the myth of Dáphnē—not as a literary reference alone, but as an epistemic and design device capable of rethinking the relationships between bodies, environments, and forms of inhabiting. The volume unfolds in three interconnected parts. The first investigates myth as a subversive and generative form of knowledge, tracing the figure of Dáphnē across ancient, modern, and contemporary representations, rituals, and collective practices. The second examines the contemporary city within the ecological and climatic crisis, addressing themes such as the Anthropocene, urban metabolism, biophilia, regeneration, and multispecies coexistence. The third develops a more-than-human perspective on architecture and urban design, exploring coexistence, adaptation, and ecological interdependence through theoretical reflections and situated practices. At the core of the book lies the idea of metamorphosis as both interpretive category and projective horizon: a way of understanding the living world as relational, unstable, and continuously transforming. Through speculative fabulae, spatial imaginaries, and ecological narratives, The City of Dáphnē envisions architecture not as an instrument of control over nature, but as a practice of sympoietic coexistence capable of generating new forms of reciprocity between human and non-human worlds. Blending critical theory with poetic imagination, the book proposes an alternative urban paradigm in which the city becomes an adaptive ecosystem shaped by interdependence, vulnerability, and transformation — a city that is not elsewhere, but already emerging within the fractures and possibilities of the present.