The aim of this exposition was to explore how architecture could be used as a tool to rethink our current material relations in architecture and shift them towards a direction based on care and interconnectivity, how broadening the scope of architectural practice from autonomous intellectual work to more bodily modes of making and opening the process to other actors could facilitate the shift, and how uncertainty and vulnerability could be embraced in the process. The project presented through this exposition, Kudos – Library for Material Relations, becomes a situated answer to these questions.
The feminist concepts of reciprocal care and interconnectivity found resonance in this research project as it became evident that while we, human participants, shaped the fungal and clay elements, they were simultaneously shaping us in the process, physically and mentally. Our relation to them, and matter in general, evolved, and our perception of our material surroundings expanded and our worldviews shifted. Ingold's idea that one learns best by making something oneself also found strength in this practice-led study. This is something that should perhaps be considered in the way architectural education is planned.
Seeing the project in its entirety as an apparatus and treating design choices as questions allowed for the themes of the research to unfold. The decision to grow, gather and reuse materials opened possibilities for new kinds of material relations and care practices, because the designers were pressed into taking on the roles of material providers and builders as well as designers. Building a frame of a more conventional shape and structure to support the unfamiliar and unknown, aesthetically, structurally and experientially, allowed for free experimentation and failure within its protection. The decision to prioritize the creative freedom and pedagogical learning opportunities of student participants over aesthetic cohesion enabled reassessment of the values of architecture in general.
During the process where agency was distributed from the architects to other human and more-than-human actors, and the architects were expanding their role to providing materials, physically making and operating the space, we saw the value-creation and meaning-making process of architecture turning backwards. We started by searching for ways to make architecture using regenerative and caring means, but in the process the architecture turned into an instrument that allowed for human communities and multispecies assemblages to be built around a common endeavour, for different forms of life to flourish, and for relations to form. In the beginning of this project the conceptual division between materials and people was still clear even though vibrancy of all matter and transcorporeality were underlying thoughts behind the project. However, during the process, this division begun to give way to a more entangled understanding.
The repeated failed attempts to create the planned material elements, as well as the unexpectedness of working with different human and non-human co-creators, gave a sense of vulnerability to the designers. Through the initial pain and embarrassment of failing, there grew an understanding and humility that is required when making, living and surviving with others. Making peace with the vulnerability itself allowed for questioning of the whole concept of failure. In the contemporary, capitalist perspective, failure is a result that deviates from a set plan. Unexpected aesthetic properties of mycelium panels or unexpected outcomes from human participation are small deviations, the acceptance of which require a change in attitudes and expectations. But as mould taking over a mycelium panel precludes its incorporation in the architectural composition altogether, does that then pass as failure? Since the goals of architecture were turned backwards in this project, maybe fostering new life on this damaged planet could be seen as a triumph of sorts after all.
Material texture in Kudos by Ganoderma Lucidum, Elina Koivisto and common reed. Photo by Elina Koivisto.
A multitude of considerations arose during the making of Kudos – Library for Material Relations, which deserve more attention than can be given in this exposition. First of all, the project is still ongoing. Data from the subsequent phases (namely new appearances and material circulation) await their formulation. Ethical questions on co-creating with fungi from the point of view of both will be explored in further articles or expositions. Deeper understanding of reciprocal, transcorporeal spatial experiences also await further investigation. A strategy for transferring the knowledge built in this research into the realm of the building industry and architectural pedagogies should be formulated in the future. Some trajectories include the use of surplus clays and materials from building sites, reed and other easily collectable natural materials, side-streams and waste from various industries, working with microbial beings and the participation of people.
When considering the scale of the global construction industry, the international supply chains and the magnitude of the change required, this project might seem insignificant. It does not bring rapid macro-level change in the economic and political climate prevailing in the western countries at the moment. However, the aim of speculative and transformative design approaches are not to create immediate change on a practical level. The transformation is aimed at the level of attitudes and worldviews. Children remember the microbes they saw on the microscope. Architecture students shift their professional focus and grow more aware of their immediate living and material surroundings, as do we ourselves. Visitors sense buildings differently and start questioning the status quo of the built environment. The invisible was made visible, through architecture.
Critical approaches to design and architecture are sometimes criticised for their elitism or disconnect from what some call "the real world". "The concern is that experimental pavilions at design fairs, biennials and galleries are a path to 'closeted irrelevance'" (Jervis 2015). However, in order to truly rethink and unlearn our current building habits we need to step aside from the tight realities of the profession as an industry. Finding a safe setting for the project was crucial for maintaining an open mind and enabling experimentation, and also failure. Simultaneously, it is vital to open the process more to the public in the upcoming steps to use it as a tool for learning, engaging and imagining possible futures together. In the autumn of 2025 Kudos – Library for Material Relations will make an appearance in Turku, Finland in a public commercial space, precisely for this purpose. Later, the last phase of the project (relocating the fungi to landscaping purposes) will take place in a public outdoor area. When aiming at hyper-local material practices, next steps could be to collect and isolate local fungal spawn from the forest and return it there multiplied.
A claim of elitism might also be directed at the geographical, cultural and demographic setting of the project. However, it is the reckless individualism and careless material practices of the Western urban dwellers that are the cause for many global inequalities and environmental issues. Thus, transforming the worldviews and attitudes here as well as revealing the harm and illustrating options for the global supply chains so often hidden and taken for granted is paramount when looking for solutions on a larger scale. Also, testing novel approaches and unreliable materials on people in vulnerable positions isn't always ethical. As an apparatus, Kudos - Library for Material Relations is transferrable to different locations and environments. The frame can physically travel and the library of material relations can be rethought and rebuilt in each locality to remind each community of their own local material, social and environmental relations, their agency and potential for action. The ideas and attitudes travel in the minds and bodies of those involved.