Nehis Osagie

Growing lamps

And then there was... mycelium

In this post I will share how I made my first products from mycelium in the Mediamatic Clean Lab. 

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Close up of lamps hanging in the growing pavilion - Floriade's Preview Center the Growing pavilion, which is made almost entirely of mycelium, opened its doors on Friday, July 31. SIGN (Stichting Innovatie Glastuinbouw Nederland) grew two large biobased chandeliers for this purpose, with a diameter of almost one and a half meters.

With:

After my orientation and accumulation at Mediamatic, it was time for production. Peter Oei had an agreement with the Floriade to produce a new type of mycelium lampshade for the Growing Pavilion.

We wanted to make better use of the properties of mycelium. The property that was very interesting to us and seemed most fun to work with, is the fact that mycelium can grow together, even after you have grown it in a certain shape or mould. We also used horticultural waste as a substrate for the mycelium. 

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Filling the lamp shade moulds with mycelium -

With: Nehis Osagie

So we grew three different basic lampshades in a week, took them out of the moulds and pressed them together on the sides. This way the separate lampshades would grow together into one bigger lampshade without the need of any glue, nails, screws or other attachments. The only problem that we faced was how to hang the lamp up. 

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Top view from the three mycelium lamp shades - Nehis Osagie

After some thinking, I got inspired by a certain lamp that I came across. Using the round structure in the middle of the lampshades, I could distribute the weight equally. By putting a fitting and a big screw through the middle of each lamp we could easily hang them up.

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Lampshade and form inspiration - Nehis Osagie