Fungutopia workshop: Grow it yourself design

Abstract

“FUNGUTOPIA is the design of a social and ecological utopia based on urban mushroom cultivation”. The Project FUNGUTOPIA is a design | research in process. The workshop will work with and about the material of fungal mycelium. We will learn how to cultivate oyster mushrooms with simple kitchen tools and let them grow in self-build forms. To understand how to work with the living material of fungi, we will discuss their properties and characteristics and the potential of mushrooms as building material, recyclers, food and medicine. Apart from the hands-on-approach the workshops goal is also to discuss questions about “design in process”: How is our understanding of design changing when we start thinking about lifecycles of creation, use and decay? How can we take the material serious as agency in the design process? How could we truly co-design with the “other” – be it human or non-human?