Can you believe this floor is made of mushrooms? The work of Mogu

Mogu is part of a new generation of companies reimagining material innovation through nature. Based in Amsterdam, but with an Italian heart, the brand works with mycelium – the complex, root-like network of fungi – to create interior products that merge biotechnology, design culture, and circular thinking. In a world where resources are increasingly strained, the company’s approach suggests a question: growing materials instead of extracting them can be a (good) way to rethink our relationship with them?

For a long time, humankind’s relationship with materials was both visceral and functional. We explored, tested, pushed limits. Then came plastic. In 1954, Italian engineer Giulio Natta discovered what would soon become the answer to every industrial challenge: synthetic polymers, endlessly adaptable, easy to mould, and cheap to reproduce. Plastic reshaped the (design) world’s aesthetics, added new layers of tactility, and infiltrated every aspect of daily life, filling it with colors and consistencies. It promised durability, efficiency, and modernity. But the real question is: at what cost?

The problem isn’t plastic itself, materials don’t have morals, they don’t make decisions – we do. Plastic was never bad, we just used it badly. We turned a revolutionary, long-lasting invention into a disposable commodity, a material designed to endure centuries that was used for coffee stirrers and party cups. That contradiction tells us a lot about how we deal with innovation, value, and waste.

So, how do we reset the system? Is it enough to develop new, more sustainable materials – bio-based, low-impact, circular from start to finish? Maybe not, but what’s clear is that a shift is happening and some of the most interesting developments are coming from the unexpected – like mushrooms.

Mogu’s story began just over a decade ago, when Maurizio Montalti – founder of the brand and the design and research studio Officina Corpuscoli – started working with mycelium. His early research revolved around co-growing small everyday objects with this living organism. But soon, he realized something bigger: mycelium wasn’t just a material. It was a collaborator. A partner in creating entirely new matter, shaped by biology, guided by design.

At Mogu, this idea became a method: mycelium is involved from the very first step of production to the final outcome, and what started as speculative design soon scaled to industrial application. The brand has managed to bring living materials into the realm of real-world products with consistency, vision, and a clear stance on sustainability.

But let’s start again, from another angle. In a time when the building industry continues to pressure already fragile ecosystems, it’s essential to put in operation regenerative thinking, which is no longer a niche concern. So, Mogu structured its production around a logic where taking in low-value residues, transforming them through fungal growth, and producing high-performance, visually refined materials. Mycelium becomes a tool for change, digesting organic waste and returning it to the material economy in a radically new form.

The result is a line of interior products that merge technical innovation with environmental awareness and a distinct design language. Mogu’s catalogue is, today, mainly divided into two main domains: acoustic panels and floor coverings.

The acoustic collection uses soft, foam-like mycelium materials grown on upcycled textile waste, and the production comprehends panels that are velvety to the touch, geometric in form, and effective in absorbing sound. More than just functional objects, they are spatial tools, able to enrich the environment visually and sensorially, introducing texture, depth, and a quiet reminder of the organic processes behind them. Modular and easy to install, they invite playful compositions and bespoke solutions – while keeping nature at the core.

Meanwhile, the flooring collection pushes mycelium’s potential even further. Supported by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, Mogu Floor transforms agricultural waste into resilient tiles and flexible rolls. The material combines fungal growth with other discarded biomasses – rice straw, corn husks, coffee grounds, seaweed, clam shells. These ingredients are both structural, and also serve as pigments, showing how each tile carries a visible trace of its origin.

The point, for Mogu’s work, is not just about replacing one material with another, but about changing the very idea of what materials are, how they’re made, and what role they play in our environments. It challenges the old duality between design and nature, suggesting a different model – one where the two aren’t in opposition, but in constant, mutual co-creation. In this framework, Nature is no longer an abstract inspiration, not a reference, but a partner. It’s a visible and active part of the design process, even in the industrial design field.