
Arup provides structural engineering for the first mushroom brick tower. The concept for Hy-Fi, designed by The Living, won MoMA’s Young Architects Program and was chosen to be displayed in the courtyard of MoMA PS1 in Queens, New York.
The bricks are made from microscopic, fibrous fungi bound to agricultural waste; in layman’s terms, a tower made almost entirely out of mushrooms. The Living’s inspiration originally sprung from Ecovative, a manufacturing company founded to develop alternate uses for the mushroom mycelium. Mycelium, when bound to agricultural waste, creates a strong, resilient matrix that can be moulded into any shape. With the Ecovative-grown mushroom brick in hand, The Living approached Arup to explore how tall they could build their mushroom tower.