Blast Studio 3D prints column from mycelium to make "architecture that could feed people"

London practice Blast Studio has developed a method for 3D printing with living mycelium and used it to form a column that could be harvested for mushrooms before serving as a structural building element.
The two-metre-high Tree Column has a ridged, undulating structure reminiscent of a tree trunk.
Its shape was algorithmically designed to enhance the column's structural capacity and provide optimum growing conditions for mycelium, the root system of fungi.
The Tree Column (above) is on display