MYCELIUM MAKING

CREATING WORLDS IN THE ANTHROPOCENE

The studio challenged students to explore architecture as a medium for ecological consciousness and cultural critique. Guided by indigenous wisdom and emerging biological insights, the studio centered on mycelium—a biodegradable fungal material—as both subject and medium. Through hands-on material experimentation, students engaged in growing structural components and developing speculative narratives that reimagine human-nature relationships in an era of environmental collapse. The studio emphasized “making kin” with non-human life, fostering collective projects rooted in sustainability, reconciliation, and transformation. Using digital and manual fabrication, drawing, and storytelling, students translated scientific, literary, and ecological ideas into architectural proposals that question prevailing capitalist and fossil-fuel-based systems. The course also emphasized critical thinking, group collaboration, and effective exhibition design. Studio V served as both a material laboratory and a conceptual workshop for envisioning architecture as an act of planetary care and cultural reimagination.

Students:

Mohammed Al-Jaber
Adam Dergosits
Jasmine Jones
Taylor Kortas
Kathryn Landers
Paola Larios
Brian McSweeney
Laurie Sheldon
Katie Tardif
Jacob Taswell
Antonio Valencia

Jasmine Adams
Jack Lodmell
Julia Lecy
Lydia Prather
Matthew McLendon
Mariah Bowman
Meghan Kress
Sean Pike

University of Colorado Denver
Studio V, Fall 2022 / 2023