Marta H. Wisniewska and Felix Heisel: MycoShell

Exhibition Description

MycoShell is an installation originally situated in Bethel Woods, NY for the 2024 Build Fest. It exhibits the potential of biological self-growing and adaptive building materials toward a collaborative future of the digital and the analog. Designed to reflect the advancing research of the MycoBuilt project, a cross-disciplinary collaboration of faculty and students in mycology, engineering, and architecture at Cornell University, MycoShell is constructed of structural mycelium-bound composite panels that have been grown from a local fungal strain of the Ganoderma family on regional agricultural by-products of corn and hemp. Additionally reinforced with natural fibers, the result is a bio-based, carbon-negative, and fully circular building component with structural capacities.

MycoShell engages these mycelium-bound panels to form a compression-optimized vault built from individual catenary arches. Analog material lab tests were used to characterize the structural capacity of the material, informing digital form finding and optimization strategies that maximize compression and reduce bending and tension in the final form. Paired with parametric design and digital fabrication, the final vault is optimized to reduce formwork through minimal unit variations. The panels were grown over the course of several months in the research labs at Cornell University and finally dehydrated with the use of specially built solar ovens to limit embodied carbon emissions from manufacturing.

Resting on timber logs, MycoShell's individual panels were woven together on-site during the 2024 BuildFest using the fabric of its natural fiber reinforcement. The collective activities work to reconsider biomaterials' role in building and leverage streamlined, prefabricated bio-fabrication processes with on-site communal building activities. The final vault is situated along and reacts to the historic site of the Bindy Bazaar, a counterculture marketplace set up during the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts Fair in Bethel Woods, built within and from the materials of the forest. MycoShell similarly is imagined coming from the trees and returning to nature over the course of the next couple of years under close observation to test the durability of the material.

The exhibition in the Bibliowicz Gallery illustrates three aspects of the project: material sourcing and raw material selection (room 1), the prototype construction at Bethel Woods (room 2) and the growth conditions and production processes (room 3).

The MycoBuilt project was generously supported by the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. MycoShell was supported by the Cornell Einhorn Center for Community Engagement. The exhibition was supported by the Cornell AAP Engagement Impact Grant.

Contributors

Regenerative Architecture Lab: In response to the building sector's enormous contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions, the Regenerative Architecture Lab, led by Department of Architecture Lecturer Marta H. Wisniewska, researches alternative and renewable building materials that shift the construction industry from current "take, make, waste" practices to those that fit within a circular economy. 

Circular Construction Lab: The Circular Construction Lab, led by Department of Architecture Assistant Professor Felix Heisel, houses a design research program that advances the paradigm shift from linear material consumption towards a circular economy within an industrialized construction industry.

Andrew Boghossian (B.Arch. '23; Research Associate, Circular Construction Lab, Cornell AAP)
Brenda Bai (M.Arch. '24)
Lauren Franco (B.Arch. '25)
Natasha Becker (B.Arch. '26)
Matthew Glaysher (Shop Technician, Material Practice Facilities, Cornell AAP) 
Marina Rosolem (M.S. DT '25)
Jeeya Savani (M.S. AAD '24)

MycoShell BuildFest Assembly Team:

Idil Derman (B.Arch. '25)
Eavan Flanagan (M.Arch. '26)
Edozie Onumonu (M.Arch. '26)
Jasper Owen (B.Arch. '26)

MycoBuilt Research Project:

Rebecca J. Nelson, Director, Nelson Lab, Cornell CALS
Kathie Hodge, Director, Hodge Lab, Cornell CALS
Lori Huberman, Director, Huberman Lab, Cornell CALS
Margaret W. Frey, Director, Frey Lab, Cornell CHE
Anil Netravali, Director, Netravali Lab, Cornell CHE
Ace Repka, Nelson Lab, Cornell CALS
J. Forest Meekins, Nelson Lab, Cornell CALS
Celeste Chhibber (B.S. '26)
Abbie Elison (B.S. '25)
Monty Hamm (B.A. '24)
Farzana Hossain (B.Arch. '23)
Eliot Lee (B.S. '26)
Sadeen Musa (B.S. '25)
Nick Paciorek (B.S. '23)
Ivania Rivera (M.S. MDC '24)
Esha Shakthy (B.S. '25)
Kimberly Valadez (B.A. '24)
Jae Geun Yoo (M.S. AAD '23)

Special Thanks:

Atkinson Center for Sustainability
Einhorn Center for Community Engagement
Department of Architecture
Department of Human Centered Design