Final

Project Description 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. Slide by Slide Presentation Transcript Slide 1 Hi, I’m Myles, and for my capstone I worked on creating mycelium furniture and I also designed modular mycelium furniture for possible production.  Slide 2 I'm going to begin by talking a little bit about the topics connected to the project as well as how they connect to each other, mainly sustainability, furniture, and the connection being the environmental effects of the fast furniture industry.  Slide 3 I began this project with my interest in bioplastics, which are plastics derived from biological materials as opposed to petroleum, and I started learning about them and other sustainable materials in my sophomore year Materials Lab D-block where we explored and created our own bioplastics.  I wanted to create furniture and I decided to do it in a mid-century/Scandinavian minimalist style, which is the style that I've been influenced and inspired by. So when I began the project, I set out to design mid-century modern furniture that incorporates bioplastic and CNC milling, CNC milling being basically a computer-controlled drill bit that can carve and cut materials, and I wanted to learn how to use that as well as create interesting furniture designs with it.  Slide 4 Some background on mid-century modern design, these are a few notable examples, but it's generally characterized by clean lines and a lot of attention to detail with warm inviting curvature.  Slide 5 Sustainability is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Historically, this has meant finding a balance between the consumption and regeneration of resources, so if you were going to make paper you would make sure that you don't cut down more trees than could grow back, but now this expanded more to being conscious of the environmentally detrimental effects of the resources we use and the byproducts we create. This means making sure that we understand the effects on the local ecosystems between the time we remove a resource from the environment and when it regenerates. It also means making sure we don't release toxins back into the environment from…