The "Living" Room – A Space Grown from Fungal Mycelium

Can an interior design project be imagined as emerging from a process of cultivation rather than production? An affirmative answer comes from the installation The "Living" Room, created by the Integrative Design | EXTREMES (ID/E) team at the University of Innsbruck. The work explores the potential of bio-integrated design by presenting a living room where furniture and furnishings are made from mycelium-based composite materials.

The installation The "Living" Room is on display as part of the temporary exhibition FUNGA – Eine verborgene Welt (A Hidden World), on view at the Naturmuseum Südtirol in Bolzano until February 7, 2027. The installation is part of the research project MUSE – MyceliUm SEat, whose research questions are embedded in teaching at the Faculty of Architecture at the Institute for Experimental Architecture / Integrative Design | EXTREMES at the University of Innsbruck. The project is funded by the Tyrolean Science Fund.

At the center of The "Living" Room is fungal mycelium as a high-performance biological material, introducing a new material language shaped by processes of growth, metabolism, and ecological cycles. Together, the mycelium composites form a domestic topography that reinterprets the home as a site of regenerative material practices, where surface textures, densities, and color variations arise from the interaction between fungal species, substrate, and environmental conditions.

Completing the installation is the series of experimental prints FUNGArt, created by microbiologist Judith Ascher-Jenull through the direct imprint of spores or fruiting bodies onto supports such as paper, canvas, glass, plexiglass, or Petri dishes. Each print—reflecting the extraordinary diversity of gilled mushrooms through unpredictable shapes and colors—is a unique and unrepeatable piece, much like a biological imprint.