© Credits: Mylo / SOURCE: https://www.mylo-unleather.com/stories/what-is-mycelium/
What is mycelium?
Mycelium is part of the fungi kingdom and consists of thread-like white filaments known as hyphae. These hyphae secrete enzymes that break down food sources to be used by the organism. Not all mycelia fruit mushrooms, but all mushrooms come from mycelia and the type of mushroom can vary greatly depending on a number of factors. It is entirely organic, biodegradable, and compostable.
Why mycelium?
The construction industry remains as one of the top contributors to global C02 emissions and energy consumption. With the ever-increasing awareness about climate change and sustainable solutions, the building construction industry is poised to mitigate these impacts. Unconventional materials and building strategies are being explored in order to achieve these ambitious sustainable goals. This is where the supermaterial mycelium comes into the picture.
Mycelial networks are extremely strong, highly resistant to water, fire, and decay, and can withstand extreme internal and external pressures. So far, researchers and engineers have devised methods to use mycelium for packaging, as an alternative to leather, in medicines, and even in fashion! The biodegradability and non-toxicity of mycelium are what make it one of the fastest growing (pun intended) materials in the field right now.
Building with mycelium
The most effective way to use mycelium in construction is in the form of bricks. When non-toxic organic waste – such as agricultural waste - is brought in contact with the mycelium, the enzyme-secreting hyphae digest the waste and grow around it until a solid block of mycelium is formed. The blocks are later broken up and moulded as required.
Although we are far from seeing it being produced and used at an industrial scale, some architects and designers have been innovative solutions in mycelium. Let us look into just a few such examples where the distinct strengths of mycelium have been used at an advantage.
© Credits: Petr Krejci / SOURCE: https://www.dezeen.com/2017/09/20/mushroom-mycelium-timber-suede-like-furniture-sebastian-cox-ninela-ivanova-london-design-festival/
Furniture
British furniture designer Sebastian Cox and researcher Ninela Ivanova have teamed up to explore the potential of mycelium in contemporary furniture design. The pair’s project, Mycelium + Timber, featured a series of lamps and stools, and was presented at Somerset House as part of the 2017 London Design Festival exhibition - Design Frontiers.
The designers used scrap willow wood to create the moulds as well as part of the mycelium mixture. The natural relationship of the wood and the mycelium was exploited to create these products.
Fashion
Dutch designer Aniela Hoitnik, on her quest to create flexible composite textile products, led to her developing a mycelium-based product that she named MycoTex. This textile built the text out of circular modules which could be repeated over the body to create a dress. This allowed for a dynamic and flexible material which could be altered according to the wearer’s needs and taste with easy repair and without resulting in any leftovers or waste during the process.
© Credits: Aniela Hoitnik / SOURCE: https://www.dezeen.com/2016/04/01/aniela-hoitink-neffa-dress-mushroom-mycelium-textile-materials-fashion/
As a qualitative step-up from faux leather, the Mylo Driver Bag uses mycelium to create a design that can act as a sustainable alternative to the classic leather handbag. The bag is advertised to have the same look and feel as a regular leather tote but without the use of animal hide or toxic chemicals used in the synthesis of regular synthetic leather products.
© Credits: Bolts Thread / SOURCE: https://www.yankodesign.com/2018/10/03/the-mylo-driver-bag-features-the-worlds-first-mushroom-based-leather/
Construction
1. The Growing Pavilion
The Growing Pavilion - designed as a temporary event space at Dutch Design Week in 2019 – was constructed entirely with biobased materials such as wood, hemp, mycelium, cattail, and cotton. Mycelium was used in the form of panels which formed the skin of the pavilion structure.
© Credits: Oscar Vinck / SOURCE: https://thegrowingpavilion.com/
The panels were attached to timber frames which could easily be removed and repurposed. Along with being naturally water-repellent and providing acoustic insulation, the mycelium panels also lend the pavilion a distinct visual character through their organic colour and texture.
2. Hy-Fi
In 2014, New-York’s The Living Embodied Computation Lab, commissioned by Princeton University, constructed a tower built entirely corn stalks and mushrooms. The tower was intended as a temporary structure to host MoMA Ps1’s summer events.
© Credits: Cecil Barnes V / SOURCE: https://www.buildwithrise.com/stories/mycelium-fungi-as-a-building-material#:~:text=Mycelium%20is%20a%20natural%20fungi,(literally)%20for%20future%20homes
The bio-bricks were cultivated by combining agriculture waste such as corn husks with mycelium and packed into brick-shaped moulds to create the 10,000 solid lightweight bricks that were used in the construction of the tower. After three months, the structure was disassembled and the soil resulting from the composted bricks were given to local community gardens.
3. MycoTree
The MycoTree is a naturally grown, spatial branching mycelium-based structure designed using 3D graphing statistics. This innovation allows mycelium to be used as structural support for a building rather than just for cladding purposes. Its digitally fabricated complex nodes optimise the geometry of the structure such that it could act as the base for a two-storey building.
© Credits: MycoTech / SOURCE: https://mycl.bio/news/article/mycotree-2017-seoul-biennale-architecture-and-urbanism
The mycelium mixture was created by combining a food mix of sugarcane and saw dust along with the mycelium and took about two weeks to grow. The MycoTree was designed by architect Drik Hebel and engineer Philippe Block and was showcased at the 2017 Seoul Architecture Biennale.
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