E[CO]XPLORATION

Prompted by B.Muller’s book ‘Ecology and the Architectural imagination’, E[co]xploration challenges our anthropocentrism and controlling mentality over nature that has lead to significant damages on the earth. It aims to help foster environmental awareness by creating and exploring new relationships between fungal species and humans towards a regenerative culture. E[co]xploration proposes a model for a community of researchers into fungal technologies, called the E[co]xplorers, who will celebrate the material possibilities of the dirty and earthy fungi. The scheme consists of three central units scattered over the site hosting the main activities and orientated logically according to the type of raw material needed. Those activities are the fungi-biopesticide research and production center, the mycelium panel production workshop, and finally, the E[co]xplorer house, a knowledge sharing and research exhibition space. Combining hi-tech knowledge and low-tech production method, the straw and grain grown on the land is used to fabricate on site the cladding panels of the mycelium facades. These elements can be replaced as the needs of the users changes or to maintain the mycelium facade.