Mycelium Making: Creating Worlds in the Anthropocene

This studio looked to indigenous wisdom and advances in our scientific understanding of nature to cultivate architectural languages that speak to our spiritual and intellectual needs. Students were asked to consider the effects of instability and uncertainty on the individual and the collective psyche and propose an environment for co-existence with nature and fellow humans. The studio explored what it means to “make kin” (Haraway, 2016) in the Anthropocene and how the breakdown of existing models offers potent ground for new forms of space making to emerge. 


Students explored the building potential of mycelium, as a biodegradable structural material. The studio offered an opportunity for hands on making with living materials and featured both individual and collective laboratory exercises that helped build an understanding of the material development process and mycelium’s role in the making of structural form. Students gained experience in growing building components, utilizing micro-welding to construct unit-based structures of living materials, experienced working in a laboratory for the purposes of developing new types of material ecologies and engage in digital and manual fabrication.