On May 3-4, the UC Davis Biodesign class exhibited our research project mykos at the Santa Cruz Mountain Mushroom Festival. Mykos will be an ecovillage in Yunnan, China, that showcases mycelium-based architecture and design materials made from fungal mycelium. We are collaborating with faculty and students at Yunnan Arts University in Kunming, led by Dr. Danting Sun, on this multi-year project, as well as with mycotect (mycelium architect) Chris Maurer of redhouse studio architecture in Cleveland, Ohio.

Maurer designed and built the first structural (meaning, no other supports) mycelium block (mycoblock) building in the world, MycoHAB in Namibia, Africa, completed March 2024. The blocks form the structure, carrying the load of the roof and solar panels; they are covered by an earth-based plaster with lime in it, as many adobe houses are, to protect the bricks from the elements. We are using Maurer’s brick-making method for mykos, which UCD biodesign students have learned this quarter, in order to produce our own bricks that were on display at SCMMF. We took waste spent mushroom substrate, donated by Far West Fungi, to compress into the bricks, modeling circular design in terms of reusing agricultural waste to make sustainable design.

UCD students have seven different projects going this quarter. One team (Echie Cheung, Swayam Patel, Forest Sabath) is experimenting with brickmaking mixing different mycelium species to optimize both strength and hydrophobic properties. Another team (Dharyl Licudine, Gisella Henrianto, Keiko Ladrillo, Phuong Tran) is developing biobased waterproofing sealants to help protect mycobricks from humidity and rain. The Design team (Abby Sommer, Abigail Ko, Emily-Mae McConihe, Cierra Mae Venzon) is creating prototypes of mycelium-based design for the gallery and shop at mykos, in order to reveal the possibilities. They are re-making a thrift-store chair with a mycelium foam seat, covered with mycelium leather, with a biowelded seat back ornamented with a Yi (ethnic minority group in Yunnan where mykos is located) pattern, in addition to lamps covered with mycelium leather. Lilly Tisza and Yash Rathi are experimenting with coloring bricks using natural dyes, with Lilly focusing on dyeing mycelium-based leather with mushroom dyes and Yash developing colored coatings for bricks. Kavya Shankar is making acoustic panels from mycelium foams for interior décor sound absorption, using both molds and 3D printing, which Sam Piechota is also developing to print mycelium composite forms for interiors. Megumi Konzen is developing compressed adobe brick composites that include mycelium. Finally, another team of designers is in charge of the promotional designs for mykos, including posters shown at the mushroom festival, a video for submission to the Biodesign Challenge in June, and also our website www.mykotecture.com which is our primary submission to the Biodesign Challenge special prize competition The Terra Prize for Outstanding Digital Submission (https://www.biodesignchallenge.org/prizes ).

We had a fantastic experience at the mushroom festival. Our students met other myco-materials developers who have different ways of creating, for example, mycelium leather or mushroom dyes. This is a new research area without many research publications yet, so learning from practitioners has inspired our students to try new things.  On the flipside, so many other vendors at the fair as well as the visiting public were so excited to learn about mykos and how UC Davis is a leader in biodesign practices. We talked with architects, engineers, artists, UC Berkeley students, fungal geneticists, mushroom farmers and suppliers, etc. One of these, Redwood Mushroom Supply, in Santa Rosa, CA, was so impressed with our students that they gave us their grow tent (which is a plastic shelf enclosure with fan for air circulation and humidifier for humidity control – $175 value) as a gesture of good will and support for future mycelium designers. Other mushroom farmers have offered to give us their spent mushroom substrate bricks to make bricks.

We now have many more mentors in the field who want to support UC Davis biodesign students in their projects. We are back finishing up this quarter to complete all of our projects by May 30, when external judges will give our class feedback on their projects, which we will then submit to the Biodesign Challenge competition on June 3.