Growing Fungi Structures in Space / Collaboration with European Space Agency (ESA) & Exhibition

We’re happy to announce that Officina Corpuscoli, together with Utrecht University, recently started working on a collaborative research-project with the Advanced Concepts Team of the European Space Agency (ESA).

Together, we’re conducting studies, exploring possibilities and developing visions for the employment of fungal based bio-composites as cost effective materials for constructing / growing architectural structures on other planets’ surfaces (e.g Moon/Mars surface).

Human exploration of space requires minimal volume and mass of materials to be transported from Earth. In situ manufacturing of fungal structures will require transporting a minimum amount of fungal spores to space which would then be used to inoculate local organic material for growing bio-composites in situ.

 

As part of this ambitious and exciting project, we’re currently developing and testing new mycelium materials (both pure and composites), implementing and assessing the related technologies (e.g design computation & robotic fabrication), as well as conducting unprecedented research in relation to fungal biology and growth processes taking place in extreme conditions.

 

Even if it just at its beginning, the project content and the related objectives, as well as the preliminary tests performed, will be presented and exhibited as part of the ESTEC Open Day 2016.

In case you’d like to be present during the ESTEC Open Day, please register here.

When:          Sunday, October 2nd, 2016 (from 10 AM to 5 PM)

Where:         ESA-ESTEC – 1 Keplerlaan, Noordwijk