Living materials · est. 2019 · Rotterdam
Mycelia Bioworks grows matter the way a forest does — feeding a fungal network on agricultural waste until it knits itself into packaging, leather, and load-bearing panels. No extraction. No emissions. Just root logic, at scale.
01 — The catalogue
Each material starts as a single inoculation and finishes as a solid you can hold. Every batch carries its own growth log — the diary of how it came to be.
Protective packaging
A drop-in replacement for expanded polystyrene, grown to the exact negative of your product in a reusable mold. Shock-absorbing, flame-resistant, and edible to soil.
Textile · leather alt.
A supple, full-grain leather alternative pressed from a Ganoderma mat. Takes dye, ages with a patina, and comes off the growth bed as a continuous sheet — no offcuts.
Architecture · panels
Compression-grown structural blocks with the strength of soft masonry and the weight of cork. Trametes hyphae lignify under controlled humidity into a panel that insulates while it holds a wall.
Cosmetic · self-heal
A thin dormant mycelium film that reactivates when wetted, closing scuffs and scratches on its own. Shipped dry; wakes up on your product's surface.
02 — Inside the grow room
Nothing here is assembled. Every stage is the organism doing what it already knows — we just set the table and control the weather.
A sterile substrate of hemp hurd and spent grain is seeded with a chosen strain on a single point.
Hyphae fan outward in the dark, threading the substrate into a single connected body.
Humidity and CO₂ are tuned to push the network to knit tight — this is where strength is grown.
The colonised block is de-molded and finished to shape while still soft, then locked in.
A gentle low-heat bake ends growth. The material is now inert, stable, and shippable.
03 — First principles
Mushrooms are only the fruit. The organism itself is mycelium — a dense mesh of microscopic threads called hyphae that grow from their tips, branch, and fuse into one continuous network. A single teaspoon of forest soil can hold kilometres of it.
Because hyphae digest their food externally and knit as they feed, they turn loose waste into a self-binding solid — a natural, tunable composite. Adjust the diet and the climate, and the same organism grows foam, felt, or structure.
04 — In good company
"The first fungal material we've handled that a structural engineer would sign off on without flinching."
"Mycelia treats a fungus like a foundry treats iron. It's oddly beautiful to watch."
"Packaging that you can compost in the same bin as your coffee grounds. The rest of the industry is now on notice."
05 — Start a culture
Tell us what you'd grow instead of make. We'll come back with a strain, a timeline, and a sample you can hold in a fortnight.