Grow
your own Could fungus
provide the construction industry with a new supply of eco-friendly natural
materials? Kay Hill
looks at the case for mycelium and other micro-
organisms
UNTIL RECENTLY, the last thing anyone wanted to find inside their home or office was fungus. But with the search on for materials that are kinder to the environment, humble relatives of the mushroom could be taking centre stage.
Mycelium is a dense network of fungal micro-filaments called hyphae that in the wild would form a tangled mass of threads beneath the ground, a kind of root structure that nourishes the visible fungus. It has been farmed commercially for food since 1985, when Quorn was launched on to the market, but entrepreneurs are now discovering the potential of various strains of mycelium for a wide variety of structural uses, ranging from insulation blocks to furniture and textiles.
Frank Melendez is a partner in bioMATTERS, a London and New York-based company specialising in 3D printing and robotic fabrication techniques for mycelium, which gained considerable interest at the 2023 London Design Festival, Material Matters exhibition. An architecture graduate of Yale University and associate professor at the Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York,
Above, clockwise Using the unique patterns and structures contained in mycelium has allowed for an appreciation of fungus as a source for making furniture and harvesting it for materials
Melendez set up bioMATTERS with co-founder and partner Nancy Diniz, a practising architect and course leader of the Masters in Biodesign at Central Saint Martins, UAL.
‘We’ve been working with mycelium for years now,’ says Melendez. ‘Tere are a lot of people who recently started working with it, as it’s a pretty new and exciting area to be exploring. One of our main interests is growing mycelium to make products that are biodegradable, minimise waste, and promote a circular economy. Te building industry contributes so much waste to landfill and is a big contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, so the industry is really focusing on looking at replacing plastics and other non-biodegradable products. Mycelium is a natural living organism that’s abundant and can be grown.’
At bioMATTERS, Melendez and Diniz are developing interior tiling and panelling systems, modular screens and partitions, and decorative items. Now, after an initial phase of R&D, they are looking for investors and commissions to expand into larger scale furniture, interior installations,
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