Phae
Air is shared, yet its impact goes unseen. Phae uses mycelium, a bio-based material with natural air-regulating properties and a fully circular lifecycle, to make our shared impact on indoor environments visible.
Skills
Design, Material research, Prototyping, Experimentation
Timeline
12 weeks - Spring 2026
Materials
Reishi mushrooms, PETG sheets, Walnut, Cross-dowels, Wood screws, 3D printing filamentTools
Oven, Vacuum former, Aspire 4.0 (CNC), Woodworking tools, 3D printerPhae is a wall divider designed to live within shared spaces, responding to the air and the people that move through them.
Phae regulates air quality through the material itself, not through added technology.
Rethinking Indoor Air
Indoor air quality is rarely treated as a design problem. Pollutants build up invisibly in shared spaces.
Material as the Mechanism
The partition that divides the room is the same object that quietly regulates it.
Phae evolves over time, changing as the material interacts with the air around it, recording the quality of a shared space and the people who occupy it.
Designed to be assembled, disassembled and reconfigured, with individual panels replaceable as needed.
Every stage is considered, from extraction to disposal.
Grown, Not Manufactured
Most office partitions use petroleum-based materials that off-gas and end up in landfills.
Material Lifecycle
Mycelium is one of the few truly circular and regenerative materials.
Filling the Moulds
Mycelium is packed into custom moulds by hand, then left to grow for up to 7 days.
A process that is closer to farming than manufacturing.
Releasing the Moulds
After 7 days of growing, each panel is carefully removed by hand.
It then sits to dry, halting all biological activity and setting the material permanently into form.
See a more in-depth documentation of my process HERE.