What if we had to find completely new materials for furniture production? I’ve explored this question and designed a pouf optimized to be grown with mycelium.
Mycelium is the vegetative part of a mushroom, consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like hyphae. What caught my interest with this material is that if you mix mycelium with rest-stream materials, such as hemp, the mycelium acts as a natural glue. It fills in the open spaces and grows to form a solid object. This results in a natural composite material with excellent technical properties such as: Good acoustics, fire and UV resistance, low weight, no odor and it’s 100% compostable.
I didn’t want to compete with the plastic industry, but I wanted to explore a completely new approach to materials. We need to challenge the way we're using, discarding and manufacturing materials today.
Myco is a pouf naturally grown with mycelium and hemp. It’s symmetric but it has at the same time an organic look. Four legs easing into a half sphere with a convex seat. All enhancing the form language I wanted, mushroom associations but not a direct translation.
Printing out several prototypes so I could more easily see what worked and not and then analyzing each and every model for its specific looks.
This is the prototype I went for. It’s symmetric but it has at the same time an organic look. Four legs easing into a half sphere with a convex seat. All enhancing the form language I wanted, mushroom associations but not a direct translation.
I tried the growing process out myself and was very satisfied with the result. I made some sample pieces to get a look and feel of the material. Close up you can see how it acts as a natural glue, filling in the empty spaces. Working with mycelium is not always as easy as you think. It is an organism with its own will, that cannot be 100% controlled and therefore gives different results from time to time. Underneath there is an overview of what you need and a short video of my process.
