The fungi not only digest plastic, they’re edible too. Fungi Mutarium originated from a collaboration between Livin Studio and University Utrecht. The project envisions a novel fungi food product grown on (plastic) waste, a prototype to grow it and culinary tools to eat it.
Livin is a collaborative design development office, based in Austria, established by industrial designer Katharina Unger. She was recently joined by Vienna designer and maker Julia Kaisinger. Their greatest passion is ‘to bring people closer to the origins of their food through design.’
In close cooperation with University Utrecht the designers developed a prototype of an installation that grows edible fungal biomass, mainly the mycelium, as a novel food product. Bowls made of agar, a nutrient base made of seaweed, are filled with plastic waste and a solution of fungal spores. In a few weeks the plastic is gone, while the agar bowl, called FU, is overgrown with edible mycelium. Unger and Kaisinger not only invented the installation to grow the fungi, but also the cutlery to eat them.