Kingdom: Vegetabile.
//Description
“One of the main challenges of the current century is to transform our consumption-oriented economic system into an eco-friendly and self-sustaining society, capable of minimising energy consumption, carbon emissions and the production of waste, while reducing production costs.
Mycelium is the fast-growing, vegetative part of fungi, consisting of a tight network of interconnected filamentous cells, called hyphae. Thanks to such structure, the mycelium is capable of harvesting, transforming and re-distributing nutrients, both for his own benefit (mushroom growth) and for the larger ecosystem. The Mycelia of mushroom-forming basidiomycetes are highly attractive because of their tendency of growing on a wide variety of substrates (e.g. agricultural waste), with the potential of converting waste products into novel compounds, characterised by diverse qualities; depending on the species and on the growth parameters, in fact, it is possible to develop materials with peculiar properties, as for instance in relation to strength, elasticity, thickness, homogeneity, water repellency, etc.
The resulting materials – both structural and decorative – are highly interesting for the development of applications which relate to architecture and design.” (Montalti, 2015)
Material Qualities
Kingdom Attributes
- Organic
- Unique
- Honest
- Irregular
- Natural
- Natural Color in Volume
- Natural Odor
- Lightweight
- Natural and Compostable
Specific Material Attributes
- Velvety
- Soft
- Fibrous
- Extravagant
- Light
- Dense
- Elastic
- Bumpy
- Uneven
- Futuristic
Basic Ingredients
- Mycelium filamentous cells (hyphae).
- Agricultural leftovers.
Contact
Oficina Corpuscoli – Maurizio Montalti.
Witte de Withstraat 108 hs, 1057 ZG Amsterdam, The Netherlands
info@corpuscoli.com
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Images property of the material owners.
-Montalti, M., (2015) The rowing lab / Mycelia. retrieved from http://www.corpuscoli.com/projects/the-growing-lab/