Future lunar and Martian bases will face numerous challenges, including minimising the need for logistical support from Earth. Extraterrestrial habitats will consist of living cells and service modules, designed to function in an integrated and sustainable manner.

The lunar base will be the ideal test bed to develop and validate the solutions needed to overcome these challenges, in preparation for missions to Mars. On the Red Planet, it will be crucial to rely on local production of materials for buildings, structures and equipment, using 3D printers. These technologies could exploit indigenous resources, such as regolith, or innovative organic materials, such as mushrooms, with the aim of reducing the load of materials to be transported from Earth.

Mush Room is an innovative system for the construction of autonomous modular cells, designed for the colonisation of the Moon and planets. It utilises Mycelium, an extraordinarily versatile mushroom with exceptional properties that can be transformed into a wide range of materials and applications related to architecture and design.

The inspiration behind the Space Design project stems from the gradualness with which each society develops in a specific context. This approach has been reinterpreted through the use of a material that grows and evolves gradually. Furthermore, the idea of using Mycelium is not based on the idea of transporting materials from Earth, but on the possibility of generating them directly on the destination planet, exploiting local resources.

The focus was on a building system that represents the starting point for the colonisation of a planet, offering a unique modular element that allows an environment to be developed and adapted to different needs. Furthermore, this organic network of filamentous cells has distinctive characteristics such as strength, elasticity, lightness, thickness, homogeneity, water resistance, rigidity and UV protection. For these reasons, the use of Mycelium in structural and architectural applications is being explored to realise state-of-the-art constructions.

The main component of Mush Rooms is the inflatable living space, which originates from a simple box. The walls of this structure are made of a three-layer material, consisting of two layers of ETFE, a polymer fabric with high structural properties and corrosion resistance, which enclose a layer of organic material, composed of Mycelium mushrooms.

Once the structure has been positioned, transported to the planet by an autonomous spacecraft and anchored to the ground, the fungi can begin to grow, feeding on the organic layers. The inflatable structure is equipped with ribs that help maintain stability during the mushroom cementing process. This phase lasts about three weeks. Next, the rovers apply the windows and connect the various modules together. The system is then pressurised, at which point it is ready to be inhabited.