anomalia’s mycomuseum with mycelium furniture and designs
Suyash Sawant and Bhakti Vinod Loonawat of Anomalia curate MycoMuseum, a show that exhibits the future of fungi and the use of mycelium with biodegradable blocks and recyclable leather for furniture like chairs. The pieces are exhibited during the Conscious Collective event by the Godrej Design Lab Initiative in Mumbai, India between December 13th and 15th, 2024. In the event, Anomalia showcases some mycelium furniture and material designs.
These include the biodegradable blocks and wall system named MycoBlox by MYCL Bio and ROHA; the clothing MycoCore by Anomalia and fashion designer Anushé Pirani in collaboration with Mycl Bio; the MycoLiving textile by Mycl Bio’s Mylea which is the recyclable leather grown from mycelium; and the packaging design by ROHA and student work from the L. S. Raheja School Of Architecture. Anomalia collaborates with these designers whose research also focuses on using and growing mycelium for furniture, material, and textile purposes.
Anomalia MycoBlox | all photos © MYCL Bio, courtesy of Anomalia, unless stated otherwise
Lightweight and stackable blocks from fungi
In Anomalia’s MycoMuseum, mycelium as furniture and textile takes center stage. Visitors to the event see MycoBlox, which is a wall system made of the mushroom root structure. The research platform draws from the agricultural waste to grow the MycoBlox, which is a series of lightweight, stackable, and load-bearing blocks.
They’re low-carbon enough to reduce carbon emissions and construction waste and completely biodegradable, so they ‘rejoin’ the earth’s resource cycle at the end of their lifetime. Anomalia grows MycoBlox in five-part molds, and the design team has produced these pieces in collaboration with Mycl Bio.
Anomalia MycoBlox at the production facility at MYCL, Mycotech Lab in Bandung, Indonesia
Recyclable leather for chair made of mycelium
The MycoLiving chair comes next at MycoMyseum, wrapped with recyclable leather made of mycelium. The furniture piece uses Mycl Bio’s mycelium-based leather called Mylea, resulting in a chair that’s fully recyclable. The team imagines mycelium as an accessible material for daily use, which is a similar perspective brought to life by MycoCore.
Here, Anomali, Anushé Pirani, and Mycl Bio transform mycelium into a garment that can be woven as a dress or piece of clothing. They repurpose the cutouts from shaping the gills into fine mycelial threads to add depth and texture to the base of the garment. All these furniture and material designs are showcased at Anomalia’s MycoMyseum during the Conscious Collective event in early December 2024.
each block weighs around 1.6 kilos and can take up to 1.5 tons of load
early prototyping stages of Anomalia MycoBlox
‘Anomalia MycoBlox’ assembly at MycoMuseum exhibit | photo © Bhushan Gavas, courtesy of Anomalia
MycoMuseum Exhibit at Conscious Collective 2024 | photo © Bhushan Gavas, courtesy of Anomalia
Anomalia’s MycoMuseum exhibits mycelium as furniture and designs
