Architecture
OCT 2022
“Mushroom Mycelium represents rebirth, rejuvenation, regeneration. Fungi generate soil that gives life. The task that we face today is to understand the language of Nature.” – Paul Stamets
Mycelium – a threadlike network of fungi that grows rapidly and in any shape – is being explored as a resilient, sustainable alternative to traditional building materials in the field of architecture. For a project at Milan Design Week in 2019, the Turin-based architect and designer Carlo Ratti explored the aesthetic as well as the structural properties of the mycelium forms. Developed in collaboration with the energy company Eni, ‘The Circular Garden’ was a series of self-supporting arches, clustered into four outdoor ‘rooms’, that was installed in Brera’s Orto Botanico. Four-metres-high each, the 60 arches together formed a kilometre-long chain of mushroom material.
The installation was grown from soil over 6 weeks and returned to the soil, in a neatly circular fashion, after the installation closed.
