Sharing Roots of Renewal
Chapter 3: Compost
In this third article of our series (Read part 1 here and part 2 here), our Innovator-in-Residence, Elena Maldonado Suarez, concludes her exploration on mycelium-driven design. By understanding the substrate, nurturing material growth, and engaging in composting, Elena reveals material transformations, how they shape our environment and how they might also be used to understand and shape our future design processes.
Why compost?
Emphasizing the cyclical nature of growth and decomposition, with this research piece I sought to explore the act of composting and the power of soil to regenerate as a metaphor for a culture of reciprocity and interconnectedness — a return of feed to its source. Through informal wisdom, local interactions, and scientific knowledge, I experienced the importance of mutual exchange with all entities involved in and around the design process. Drawing parallels with natural ecosystems, where diverse organisms interact and support each other, open-ended research benefits greatly from a methodology defined by a shared micro environment and interconnected relationships.
Compost and urban soil regeneration through fungi
Growing requires trust and patience, similar to the understanding that composting takes its own time, it has its own natural pace. The essential process of spontaneous transformation and renewal occurs naturally. Compost, created by the decomposition of organic matter, is essential for enriching soil, promoting plant growth, and ultimately sustaining ecosystems.
Nowadays, our urban soils are often polluted by past industrial activities and construction. Fungal diversity undergoes a significant decline when transitioning from natural environments to urban areas. By integrating the principles of myco-restoration (soil regeneration through fungal activity) and mycoremediation (toxin removal using fungal processes), urban soils can be transformed into thriving ecosystems. This approach not only cleans contaminated soil but also enhances its fertility, creating a sustainable loop where materials come from natural substrates, grow, transform into compost, and enable the growth of the next process.
Embracing this interconnected cycle fosters a resilient urban environment, where waste is not seen as waste anymore, but as a transformative opportunity that is continuously cycling materials back into productive use, and supporting a thriving ecosystem. Just as compost transforms waste into nutrient-rich soil, mycelium-based materials offer a way to recycle and regenerate our human-made materials, creating a circular process that mimics the inner functionalities of the natural world.
Sharing as a means of growth
In the same way that compost enriches the soil and fosters new growth, the exchange of ideas and experiences can nurture collective progress and innovation. This concept resonates with the principle of empowering interdependent autonomies, where the value lies in individual efforts contributing to collective goals. It’s not about losing individuality within the group but about how solitary actions can significantly enhance community endeavors. As we delve into the transformative potential of mycelium and compost, we can see how these natural processes mirror our ability to contribute to and sustain ecosystems of knowledge and collaboration.
To share this research, I reflected these principles in the concept, development of a workshop in collaboration with the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and given during the Festival Osten. Located in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, it is an exciting example of the fate and opportunities of a region with a history of transformation, and with the potential to reactivate a post-industrial area through participatory approaches and the vision of coexistence between people and regenerated nature. What can we learn from Wolfen’s biography to grapple with the necessary transformations of the future?
BITTERFELD-WOLFEN: A CASE STUDY
How natural processes mirror our ability to contribute to and sustain thriving ecosystems of knowledge and collaborationOur workshop delved into the evolution of post-industrial landscapes, reimagining their legacies through the concept of living materiality. By co-creating, co-designing and thinking like a forest, the workshop highlighted the significance of processes, imagination, and fiction in crafting systems for human-nonhuman interaction.
Drawing wisdom from the natural world, particularly from Wolfen’s regenerative environment, we aimed to foster a collective narrative and facilitate an active dialogue with living material. How can we see what is hidden from our sight?
Our journey extended beyond the visible by delving into the lives beneath the surface. Mycelium, visible and invisible to our eyes, built our workshop environment. Its threads connected and sustained. Fungi are maps, systems where all geometries connect, creating new spaces of possibility.
In our endeavor to restore post-industrial natural areas and share our mycelium-based design research, we focused on the Chemiepark area (historically significant in Germany for its extensive chemical production since the late 19th century) and reached out to local mycologist groups.
Dominated by resilient Robinia trees, likely planted decades ago, this area thrives despite poor soil conditions. These trees demonstrate remarkable adaptability to contaminated soils, a legacy of past chemical and industrial activities. However, fungi growing on and near Robinias absorb the toxic chemicals, raising concerns about their edibility. The sparse mushroom population, exacerbated by dry soil and restricted access, poses additional risks for consumption. Consequently, foraging occurs primarily in nearby forests, which were replanted after mining with diverse mycelium from across Europe but historical pollution in Wolfen has instilled caution in consuming local mushrooms.
By applying the principles of myco-remediation and myco-restoration, we engaged in a collective dialogue to address key questions: How does nature reclaim abandoned industrial landscapes? Can mycelium serve as a model for material creation? Could new operational models bridge the gap between a factory and a forest?
Through this dialogue, we crafted transitional objects using mycelium-based materials. The concept of creating ephemeral objects involves determining the appropriate time to return them to the earth, acknowledging that these objects are already part of the compost that will temporarily shape our physical reality. Ultimately, they become essential components of the living compost that regenerates the soil, contributing to the revitalization of Wolfen’s landscape.
Closing the loop
Reconsidering approaches to design involves moving beyond the human-centric sense of control and recognizing the ecological web represented by fungi. This requires a transdisciplinary collaboration between our environment, scientific knowledge, and local agents. In the 21st century, design reinterprets local resources with innovative performance through craft practices.
My PCH residency process began in the laboratory as I experimented with different substrates (organic and inorganic) and undertook material form and mushroom explorations alongside other experiments, a holistic approach that helped me to understand the organism’s possibilities and performance. This knowledge informed the development of an open-ended, hexapodal structure that responds to different fabrication methods. Using the studio’s 3D-printer, I created molds for shaping the material, with the geometric, living structures naturally knitting together through continuous mycelium growth.
In this collaborative process, crafting and shaping the material alongside mycelium allows the material to co-define the final outcome. Questioning the possibilities of ephemeral outcomes and speculating on the impermanence of matter, the approach creates an aesthetic language through a living organism, where the designer does not require self-expression.
With this work I sought to present how the mycelium trail involves the designer at every step. It reflects everyday micro practices that don’t need new material resources, towards an ecological transition that does not see material developments as a replacement but as an alternative.
We have the opportunity to follow a dynamic creation, an evolving artifact, that serves our purposes and that can be returned to its origin thanks to mycelium’s regeneration. This process encompasses the entire cycle of fabrication, utilization, and recovery, thus establishing a vital connection between human consumers and the natural world. However, we see limitations in using mycelium as a material, embracing fresh material frameworks that provide us with new industrial models that adopt innovative rituals for production is essential to achieve an ecological transition.
The invisible realities of our daily lives prompted this research to explore materiality and design. Nonorganic bodies and post-human perspectives provide new dimensions in design practices where nature composes (and composts) novel materials. Mycelium, symbolizing the interwovenness of nature, is an allegory for the relationship between human and material agencies.
Even though my journey began with a motivation to research sustainable materials, it has been a continuous, branching path of learning and unlearning. Beyond innovative material applications, it became about the origins and ways of living, about processes and methodologies. About porous learning, listening to every encounter in the process, gathering different viewpoints.
Following the philosophy of this project, I have also chosen to open-source all my research findings. To return the nutrient — time, insight, advice — that has been shared with me to the collective soil, to cultivate new growth and encourage a collaborative effort towards sustainable and regenerative design practices.
It has been a pleasure to work in partnership with nature!
Additional thanks to TopLab and Mycelionaires for their time, space and insight.
Research, writing and visuals by Elena Maldonado Suárez as part of the Innovator-in-Residence program at PCH Innovations. Excerpts from her research can be found here.
PCH Innovations is a Berlin-based, creative engineering studio for exploratory technology and innovation strategy. Do you have an experiment you’d like to run? Get in touch! We are always looking for new challenges to take on and talents to collaborate with.
