This weekend I got a chance to follow a tutorial on V-Ray for Rhino, where I learned the there is a virtual exposure control that was causing the blown out renders. I also looked through the files for Rhino's built in rendering materials to see if ones of their stucco materials was a good match, but for now I am sticking with the custom material.

I began working on possible attachment mechanisms for mycelium pieces. So far I just have a wood plank that fits into both pieces to keep them from sliding apart.

I also baked the second mycelium base again after it dried for a number of weeks and photographed it. I then spent a while doing some sloppy edits to remove some red labeling on the fabric backdrop.

I spend the morning work time filling in parts of my presentation for the mid-studio critique tomorrow. So far it is a lot of text, so I need to simplify it.

Presentation Link

I also worked with Ammar on Rhino settings and tips for the rendering work I will be doing. I installed a trial of V-Ray, and kind of got it to run, but the texture requires more tweaking and the lighting is blown out even when it is set to a low intensity. I will be using CPU rendering only since I have Surface Book which uses a custom Nvidia driver not supported by V-Ray.

I tried to test out rendering the mycelium texture in Rhino by modelling the coffee table design. I used a slightly modified stucco texture which looked okay in the render mode of the Rhino viewport, but after doing a full render it look awful. I might be able to use a bitmap texture based off photos of grown and dried mycelium, but the ones I have now are closeups. I plan to work a little bit more on getting a better texture, but for now I am going to move on to working on the new modular designs.

Today I started to play around with variations of the basic shapes I sketched for modular furniture. I started with the cube and triangular prism, then stretched, squished, hollowed out, and rounded corners. Once I have a number of shapes I can start thinking about how they will fit together.

Sustainably-sourced modular seating for home and public spaces. The modules are grown from mushrooms and attached using bamboo components.

Over the last number of decades, the amount of furniture in landfills has increased dramatically along with the demand for fast furniture. While inexpensive and quick to produce, these cardboard and plywood furniture pieces often contain toxic chemicals and only last a short time before being thrown away and replaced. Growing furniture from mushrooms benefits the environment by absorbing carbon-dioxide during production, and can reduces the need for disposal at end-of-life

Mycelium, the main body of a fungus, forms a water resistant, flame retardant, and fully biodegradable Styrofoam-like solid when grown together with crop waste. The mycelium modules are simple shapes for easy casting. Once grown, the pieces are attached using bamboo components. The modules can be disconnected from each other and rearranged to form stools, benches, and chairs.

Mycelium Furniture: Sustainably-sourced modular seating for home and public spaces. The modules are grown from mushrooms and attached using bamboo components.

Over the last number of decades, the amount of furniture in landfills has increased dramatically along with the demand for fast furniture. While inexpensive and quick to produce, these cardboard and plywood furniture pieces often contain toxic chemicals and only last a short time before being thrown away and replaced. Growing furniture from mushrooms benefits the environment by absorbing carbon-dioxide during production, and reduces the need for furniture disposal once the product reaches end-of-life.

Mycelium is the main body of fungus, that when grown together with crop waste forms a water resistant, flame retardant, and fully biodegradable Styrofoam-like solid. Mycelium furniture is grown from this composite into simple modular shapes. Once grown, the pieces are attached using bamboo components. The modules can be disconnected and rearranged to form stools, benches, and chairs, adapting to fit environmentally-conscious furniture into different types of indoor spaces.

Over the last number of decades, the amount of furniture in landfills has increased dramatically along with the demand for fast furniture. While inexpensive and quick to produce, these cardboard and plywood furniture pieces often contain toxic chemicals and only last a short time before being thrown away and replaced. Growing furniture from mushrooms benefits the environment by absorbing carbon-dioxide during production, and reduces the need for furniture disposal once the product reaches end-of-life.

Mycelium is the main body of fungus, that when grown together with crop waste forms a water resistant, flame retardant, and fully biodegradable Styrofoam-like solid. Mycelium furniture is grown from this composite into simple modular shapes. Once grown, the pieces are attached using bamboo components. The modules can be disconnected and rearranged to form stools, benches, and chairs, adapting to fit environmentally-conscious furniture into different types of indoor spaces.

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