Architecture professor co-edits new book that explores the design potential of fungi

Associate Professor of Architecture Jonathan Dessi-Olive had already been working with mushrooms for about five years when he first met Assia Crawford. Both researchers were attending a conference in Denmark in 2022 and discovered their shared interests in earthy materials and digital fabrication. They also “met all these mushroom people,” Dessi-Olive said, and began to see how, true to its fungus nature, mycelium was popping up as a material in research and practice all over the globe.

Their new book, “Designing Mycelium: Exploring the Design Potential of Fungi,” is the outcome of that initial encounter. The book was published on Oct. 19 by Routledge.