The buildings, roads and other structures that form the built environment account for about 42% of annual global carbon dioxide emissions, according to Architecture2030, and building operations are responsible for approximately 27% of those emissions. An interdisciplinary Penn State team is working to decrease those numbers by producing new sustainable architectural materials using mycelium, which is the root of fungi.

Led by Benay Gürsoy, assistant professor of architecture in the College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School and director of the Form and Matter Lab (ForMat Lab) in the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing, the team received $49,995 in funding from the Living Multifunctional Materials Collaborative Seed Grant Program through the Convergence Center for Living Multifunctional Material Systems (LiMC2) at Penn State to focus on finding methods to control and quantify how mycelium-based composites can transform in shape from shrinkage caused by dehydration. Mycelium-based composites are biodegradable materials produced on waste residue and fungi, according to Gürsoy.

Also affiliated with LiMC2 at Penn State, Gürsoy and her ForMat Lab team submitted a proposal to collaborate with researchers at the Cluster of Excellence Living, Adaptive and Energy-autonomous Materials Systems at the University of Freiburg (Germany).

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