Two pale grown blocks joined together on a wooden surface, with oyster mushrooms fruiting from one of them

Mycelium Lego

Grown interlocking blocks

Year: 2024
Context: Self-initiated material research
Role: Research, mould design, growing

21 days: to grow one unit
25°C: growing temperature
Zero: adhesive. Compostable at the end of its life

Interlocking blocks grown in 3D-printed moulds. No adhesive, no firing, fully compostable.

01Fed on what the studio threw away

Mycelium is the root network of a mushroom. Fed on waste and kept damp and warm, it binds that waste into a solid. We grew oyster mushroom mycelium on shredded paper, food packaging and flower petals.

Hands spooning brown growing mix into white moulds on a table — Packing the 3D-printed moulds.

White printed mould wrapped in film with a mushroom growing out of the side — Three weeks in. It has started to fruit through the mould.

02The shape is the joint

The mould gives the block its shape, so the geometry does the work of glue. Units lock into each other the way Lego does. Four make a layer. Layers make a stool. Assembled differently, the same units make a bench or a pen stand.

Drawing of a single block made of two linked hexagonal forms — One grown unit.

03What failed

The first block did not come out of the mould in one piece. We changed the shape and reprinted the mould until the mycelium could breathe and the block released whole.

Five white 3D-printed moulds in a column, each with a different pattern of openings — Five versions of the mould.

A mould, a grown block and a filled mould with a mushroom, laid out on brown card — An empty mould, a released unit, and a unit still growing.

04Where it could go

At the scale of a stool it is furniture. At a larger scale the same block could build walls and pavilions. Both images below are renders, not built pieces.

Render of a person sitting on a low stool made of hexagonal blocks — Render. A stool built from the units.

Render of a person walking under an arch made of hexagonal blocks — Render. An arch from the same block.

05Outcome

Made: Grown interlocking units. Moulds printed from recycled plastic filament
Tested: Mould versions, for gas exchange, growth speed and release
Fed on: Office paper, food packaging, flower petals
Tools: Rhino, SketchUp, 3D printing