Designing Mycelium

Assia Crawford is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Tulane University and the founder of Wild Futures Lab, an interdisciplinary research and teaching facility focused on bio-design. She is an ARB-registered architect and author of Designer's Guide to Lab Practice (Routledge, 2023) and Bios in Search of Zoe (ACTAR, 2025). She holds a PhD in Architecture from Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, where her thesis, Living Building Practice: Design for a Post-Anthropocene Era, examined methods for working with living organisms and the ethical dimensions of emerging material practices. Assia's research centers on biological material alternatives and digital fabrication in response to ecological challenges. Positioned at the intersection of architecture, science, and critical theory, her work uses experimental and speculative design to explore resilient, adaptive responses to environmental uncertainty.

Jonathan Dessi-Olive is a researcher, designer, and educator whose work takes a critical approach to technology while integrating the history and theory of architecture, contemporary construction, and computational design. Presently, he is an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at UNC Charlotte, where he teaches architecture design studios, structural design, and experimental research seminars. He previously taught at Kansas State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2021, he founded MycoMatters Lab, a design research and education practice that develops novel applications of fungi-based materials at diverse scales of structural design, architectural acoustics, and sculpture.