Case Study: Jasper’s Stool
Jasper Cohen is former DAAP ID Grad, and a long time collaborator with Lucy Weaver, the creator of Mycopedia. Jasper is a CAD wizard, a practiced tinkerer, and a decidedly optimistic designer. His projects frequently focus on rapid prototyping techniques as a method to democratize design, with an emphasis on open-source models. Jasper often uses the archetypes of furniture to explore new materials and production techniques.
In this collaboration, we applied the results of tests TILE_10_CB and STRCT_V_WPLA1 to create a stool. Jasper designed a stool in Fusion360 and then used a Grasshopper script and Rhino 7 to create perforated nets to be laser-cut. Embedding mycelium and laser-cutting processes allow for quick and low-cost prototypes. Once the “mold” for the stool was cut and assembled, it was packed with hemp hurds innoculated with oyster mushrooms. Using a cardboard mold allows for the mycelium composite to integrate the rigidity and structure of the mold into the final object. Like all our other experiments, this stool is alive. In order to make the stool stronger, we desicated the mycelium in our home oven.
This stool is the first of hopefully many prototypes into mycelium furniture. The surface finish and strong mycelium growth are considered a great success for a first prototype. The stool could support Jasper’s full weight for a few seconds before beginning to crack and deform. To Jasper, the usefulness of prototyping in the archetype of furniture, is the direct test of functionality. While in this category the stool under-performed, we view it as a great starting point to explore how mycelium composites can become structurally stronger by using the geometry of embedded molds.
