Interior view: the load-bearing mycelium brick structure. Photo: Arup, via "Hy-Fi Reinvents the Brick."
- Location
- MoMA PS1, Queens, New York
- Date
- 2014
- Technology
- Mycelium-grown bricks, developed and manufactured by Ecovative Design, combined with a reflective mirror-coated brick developed with 3M for the towers' tops. Structural engineering and testing by Arup.
A self-supporting tower of roughly 10,000 bricks grown from mushroom mycelium feeding on chopped corn stalks, rather than manufactured — three interlocking cylinders, wider at the top than the base, designed from the outset to be disassembled and composted at the end of its temporary installation.
Actual PerformanceEngineered by Arup to stand over 12 meters tall and resist wind gusts above 65 mph as a temporary outdoor public structure. Disassembled after the installation closed in September 2014 and composted within about sixty days, with the resulting soil returned to New York City community gardens. Winner of the 2014 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program (the competition that commissioned the pavilion) and a Holcim Awards Bronze, North America (2014–2015 cycle) — both independently confirmed via Dezeen/Designboom coverage and the Holcim Foundation's own project page.
