Wonderful projects
Curious or passionate, we are happy to support you in your applied mycology project
Project: _Symbiosis_
Stories from the Future, Autumn 2024
HEAD Geneva
IG: @nao_bldr , @chap0ng , @sarah.meylan, @enzo.srr, @pensthiel
Student-s :
Naomi Blidariu, Basile Brun, Sarah Meylan, Enzo Seurre, Lauren Thiel
Teacher-s :
Vytautas Jankauskas @veeetautas, Marta Revuelta
Assistant : Pablo Bellon @pablo__bellon
October 4–12, 2024
Master Media Design at Democracy Week – Geneva.
Interactive exhibition – Cultivating democracy with artificial intelligence.
As part of the “Stories from the Future” project by @graduateinstitute, we present Symbiosis, an interactive installation imagining democracy in 2050, where citizens, AI, and the environment collaborate.
Step into the shoes of a future Swiss citizen, scan artifacts, and feed the database of the “Mayor of the Earth”—an AI made from recycled objects and organic matter, guiding humanity through ecological and digital challenges.
Conclusion: Connecting carbon-based life to silicon may be a future we’ll see sooner than expected. In the meantime, pioneers in the field are overflowing with intelligence and curiosity!
Let’s explore and innovate for a utopian future!
Project: _Archi-Fungi_
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne – EPFL
Faculty of Architecture – Semester Project
Autumn 2023
Students: Adam-Joseph Ghadi-Delgado, Katja Heilingbrunner, Serena Mazzetti et Pauls Rietums
In this project, mushrooms become the focal point for thinking about architecture differently. Mushrooms inhabit spaces near humans, interact with other species within their environment, and highlight spatial qualities. Through them, architecture is removed from typologies and is described like a mushroom would in a guidebook. Over a semester, the team of Adam-Joseph Ghadi-Delgado, Katja Heilingbrunner, Serena Mazzetti and Pauls Rietums with the help of FloydFungi experimentally grew mushrooms in unused corners of the EPFL campus, using equipment found in its bins and laboratories.
Dans ce projet, les champignons deviennent le point central d’une nouvelle façon de penser l’architecture. Les champignons habitent des espaces proches des humains, interagissent avec d’autres espèces dans leur environnement et soulignent les qualités spatiales. À travers eux, l’architecture est détachée des typologies et est décrite comme un champignon dans un guide. Pendant un semestre, l’équipe composée d’Adam-Joseph Ghadi-Delgado, Katja Heilingbrunner, Serena Mazzetti et Pauls Rietums, avec l’aide de FloydFungi, a cultivé des champignons expérimentalement dans les coins inutilisés du campus de l’EPFL, en utilisant du matériel trouvé dans ses bennes à ordures et ses laboratoires. L’ensemble du projet est basé sur le recyclage dans un environnement urbain.
A lovely little end-of-project film based on a completely informal discussion in Pompaples.
We promise next time we’ll be much more precise about terminology and scientific approach!
Project: _Ruined_
Fabrique of the Living Arts
far° Nyon, Summer 2023
Sébastien tripode, far°
IG: @sebastientripod, @deborahrobbiano, @manentesara, @farnyon
Ruins evoke a durational process: they are in transition, on the verge of falling. But most of the time, even in tales of ruination, as Tsing explains, progress still controls us. “We are stuck with the problem of living despite economic and ecological ruination. Neither tales of progress nor of ruin tell us how to think about collaborative survival. It is time to pay attention to mushroom picking. Not that this will save us—but it might open our imaginations.”
Conclusion: Mycelium is a remarkable tool for innovation in construction and many other fields of technical exploration. However, when it comes back to cultivation, the survival parameters of this organism must still be respected.
Article: Mycélium: Champi(gn)on de l’économie circulaire,
par Audanne Comment
EPFL workshop: https://memento.epfl.ch/event/workshop-ruined-a-mycological-building-and-degradi/
Project: _SUBSTRATE_
University of Art and Design Lausanne
ECAL, spring 2023
Etudiante: Iris Gerbex
IG: @_soapi_, @studiowiekisomers, @jennfff
The flower market is a highly polluting industry, so the idea is to replace flowers with mushrooms, which grow very easily and in all seasons. In a futuristic aesthetic, a new shop concept could be created, offering ephemeral bouquets of mushrooms and vases.
Of course, the ideal was to grow different types of mushrooms on the same aluminum bouquet. So we prepared several mini-substrates, which were inserted into the aluminum mold in the hope of obtaining our multicolored bouquet. But naturally, each mushroom species has its own growth timing, and the mushrooms were still very small.
There is still a lot of work ahead to optimize this system, but it was a very nice first student project. Thank you, Iris, for stopping by to see us! 🙂