Research Overture 5: Mycelium Digitalisation
3 Nov | Co-Investigators of the Urban Biocycles Mycelium Digitalisation research module will present how fungi-based materials can be digitally fabricated for sustainable construction.
In today's building industry, natural resources are typically extracted, used, and disposed in a linear fashion – consumed rather than temporarily borrowed from natural or socio-technical circuits. The industry alone is responsible for more than a third of global solid waste production, primary energy resource consumption, and CO2 emissions worldwide. The depletion of resources and the pollution associated with their extraction poses serious threats to the environment, as well as our society.
To build a sustainable construction economy, the Urban BioCycles Mycelium Digitalisation project in Future Cities Lab Global is developing sustainable technologies using materials that can be cultivated and assembled via digital fabrication methods.
The team is exploring how material grown from fungi can be processed into structures using additive and subtractive processes. When grown into a solid, plant-based substrate, fungi grows a strong, interconnected network of fine threads – called mycelium – that bind the substrate components together. The resulting substrate-mycelium material forms a lightweight composite with compression properties.
In this overture, Co-Investigators of the project, Asst Prof. Hortense Le Ferrand, Assistant Professor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, NTU Singapore, and Dr Juney Lee, Senior Researcher at Block Research Group, ETH Zürich, share their excitement with the promises that this material holds.
Not only can fungi grow on agricultural and agronomic waste, but they also pose no threat to the food industry, as opposed to most natural materials produced on a large scale. Mycelium-bound materials, supplemented with digital fabrication methods, could effect a paradigm shift from a linear to a circular bio-economy.
FCL Global Research Overture
This webinar is part of the Research Overture seminar series, which focuses on new research topics being developed at Future Cities Lab Global (FCL Global). Each seminar features the team leading the research, who will articulate their aims and aspirations, as well as the challenges they expect. It is also an opportunity for participants to help shape the research through dialogue.