Project Summary
Our project is part of the growing global movement of Biofabrication which intersects Design, Architecture and Biology, and aims to build open-source and low-cost equipment for the development of biomaterials. In this case the project will complement an ongoing research project focused on the cultivation of wood decomposing fungi mycelia to explore its possibilities as a textile material, something similar to a mushroom leather. For this it is necessary to have a programmable incubator to test, program and standardise growing recipes and controlled environmental parameters (e.g. humidity and temperature becomes the key factors for the growth of these organisms). The incubator will make possible the generation of protocols (or recipes) for growing open source materials, allowing its replication and the evolution of new biotextiles that can be replicable at low cost.