Mycellium Corbelling: Utilizing Environmental-Driven Design and Machine Learning to facilitate biomaterial tending

Architectural obsessions with material permanence and cleanliness have been linked to unsustainable use of materials in the built environments, featuring with maintenance, often resulting in maintenance, repair, and replacement processes that demand high labor and economic resources. To address that, this study explores the potential of using biomaterials to manage the ageing of buildings dynamically and adaptively, to enhance the architectural sustainability with bio-integrative design approaches. This study is based upon an alternative perspective whereby building ageing, material impermanence and the unruly aesthetics of biomaterial erosion are embedded into the digital design process. It offers an opportunity for a more resilient architecture, through its ability to evolve rather than a need to be maintained to a condition of ‘newness’ or ultimately restored. Central to this is the concept of biomaterial tending. Using mycelium materials as a case study, their rapid degradation in outdoor environments is utilized in this study to promote a digital framework of tending dynamics for future use of biomaterials on buildings.[Attias et al., 2017].