UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — As issues surrounding climate change and global warming continue to make headlines around the world, Penn State researchers in the College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School are researching ways to lessen the effect building components have on the environment by exploring the use of sustainable materials for architectural use.

Three projects from researchers in the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing that focus on using mycelium, the root of fungus, as sustainable architectural components are featured in the “Fungi Futures: Exploring Mycelium in Product Design and Crafts” exhibition in the gallery of the (con)Temporary CRAFTS STUDIO in Bremen, Germany, which opened Sept. 21.

“MycoKnit,” a collaborative interdisciplinary project led by researchers Felecia Davis, associate professor of architecture and director of the Computational Textiles Lab (SOFTLAB), and Benay Gürsoy, assistant professor of architecture and director of the Form and Matter Lab (ForMat Lab), that explores the use of knitted textiles as a framework and reinforcement system to develop fiber composite mycelium-based architectural structures is on display. The project was funded by the Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) Foundation 2021 Research Prize.

Team members on the project include Ali Ghazvinian and Farzaneh Oghazian, architecture doctoral alumni; John Pecchia, associate research professor in the College of Agricultural Sciences' Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology and manager of the Mushroom Research Center at Penn State; Andre West, associate professor and director of The Zeis Textiles Extension at the Wilson College of Textiles at North Carolina State University; Katy Gerace, material science and engineering doctoral alumna; Paniz Farrokhsiar and Alale Mohensi, architecture doctoral candidates; and Tahmures Ghiyasi, architectural engineering master’s degree alumnus.

Other team members are Keia Jones, graduate student in the College of Agricultural sciences; Greta Miller, School of visual Arts alumna; Parachi Masown, architecture alumna; Jenna DeCandio, industrial knitter at NC State; and Chiara Dognini, an architecture doctoral student at Università degli Studi di Brescia.

Two additional projects led by Gürsoy that center on the design and sustainable fabrication of mycelium-based building parts and structures are also part of the “Fungi Futures” exhibition: “MycoCreate 2.0” and “MycoPrint.”

“MycoCreate 2.0” is a spatial structure with 64 unique load-bearing components made of mycelium-based composites. According to Gürsoy, the use of mycelium-based materials in architectural construction is still experimental but “existing research shows that it can significantly reduce the reliance on fossil fuels and the embodied energy required for construction and decrease the amount of waste that is left at the end of buildings’ lifecycles.”

The project was funded by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and was on display at the Biomaterial Building Exposition in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2022.

The core team of the “MycoCreate 2.0” project consists of Gürsoy, Ghazvinian; Arman Khalilbeigi Khameneh, doctoral candidate in computational design at the University of Calgary; and Esmaeil Mottaghi, master’s student in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University. 

The ForMat team’s “MycoPrint” project explores the potential to replace conventional petrochemical building materials, including synthetic sound absorbers, with mycelium-based composites. The team investigated “hybrid slicing and conformal material deposition approaches for robotic 3D printing of living mycelium mixtures to fabricate mycelium-based acoustic panels, augmented by a vision-based analysis to quantify post-fabrication deformations,” according to the project description.

The project was funded by an AIA Upjohn Grant in 2021.

The “MycoPrint” core team of researchers includes Gürsoy; Mohseni; Özgüç Bertuğ Çapunaman, architecture doctoral alumnus; and Natalie Walter and Alireza Zamani, architecture master’s degree alumni.

Information about the “Fungi Futures” exhibition, which runs through Oct. 25, can be found on the (con)Temporary CRAFTS STUDIO website.