Biomateriality

Mycelium pavilion by Studio Weave and Sebastian Cox

A pavilion grown from mycelium

Sebastian Cox and Studio Weave’s Intelligent Garden pavilion is grown from mycelium and ash felled to dieback – a low-carbon, compostable structure made almost entirely from waste.

The Melbourne Design Week 2026 hitlist

With thirty-plus events on bio-materials, repair and circularity, this year’s design week highlights that sustainability concepts have beyond the fringe.

Blue biomass building materials are being developed as a low carbon alternative, using kelp, seaweeds and other marine products and by-products

The tide is turning as blue biomass enters the building palette

Attention is being cast on blue biomass – materials made from seaweed, seagrass, algae and shell-based minerals. This revolution is starting to move from lab bench to building site, widening the bio-based toolkit without using arable land or freshwater.

Tea earth bricks feature through this tea shop concept store

A steeped material – tea earth bricks cover the walls of this store

This calm retail interior features a biocomposite brick made by compacting local soil with spent tea leaves using a traditional rammed-earth technique. Pressed rather than fired, the “tea-earth” material turns waste into a tactile architecture – all with lower embodied carbon and a circular end-of-life.

About Futures – new materiality with mycelium

Studio TOOJ’s DUK collection melds mycelium innovation with surrealist form

Studio TOOJ’s DUK collection quietly disrupts the boundaries between form, function and materiality. Conceived as an exploration of illusion and tactility, the made-to-order series presents sculptural pieces that appear to be soft cloth draped in space – yet on closer inspection, each one reveals itself as a precisely carved, immovable form.

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