Studio Weave partnered with landscape designer Tom Massey and furniture maker Sebastian Cox to create a mycelium-clad pavilion housing innovative technologies that was presented at the Chelsea Flower Show.
Named the Intelligent Garden and Building, the garden's architectural component comprised a "shed" for demonstrating how technologies produced by the project's sponsor – IT consulting firm Avanade – could be used to monitor the health of urban trees.
▲ 展館設計參考了花園小屋
The pavilion was designed to reference garden sheds
The pavilion aimed to evoke the sheds found in typical urban gardens. In this context, it also provided a place to review Avanade data, which might eventually be used to supplement conventional gardening tools.
The shed was designed by Studio Weave, led by architect Je Ahn, in partnership with Cox, who is known for his nature-first approach to making furniture using materials sourced from his own bioperse woodland.
▲ 它由菌絲體和本地采購的木材制成
It was made from mycelium and locally sourced wood
The two studios have collaborated several times previously, including on the Lea Bridge Library in east London, which features a wood-lined interior filled with furniture made by Cox from waste timber.
The Intelligent Garden pavilion was primarily constructed from locally felled ash and mycelium – a fungal compound that was grown at Cox's workshop in Kent.
Its fluted facade was designed to emphasise the unique properties of the materials, in particular highlighting the naturally irregular texture of the mycelium surfaces.
▲ 其凹槽立面凸顯了菌絲體的紋理
Its fluted facade highlights the texture of the mycelium
The use of mycelium references neural networks and the algorithms within artificial intelligence, as the fungi produce networks across the forest floor that allow plants and trees to communicate and support one another.
"We wanted to use mycelium not just because it's an innovative and carbon negative material," Ahn told Dezeen, "but also because there is this link between how AI operates and how mycelium behaves."
▲ 可開啟的屏風結合了白蠟木和菌絲體
Openable screens combine ash wood and mycelium
The building's facade featured operable screens that combined woven ash panels with mycelium grown using agricultural waste from Cox's practice.
The screens could be fully opened to create a stronger connection between the interior and the garden, which Massey designed using reclaimed or nature-based materials that complemented the pavilion's natural textures.
▲ 展館一側設有一個小廚房
One side of the pavilion has a kitchenette
A table and kitchenette at one end of the shed was used for hosting workshops exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) might support custodians of urban trees by providing data on their health and growth rates.
At the opposite end of the building, an enclosed courtyard functioned as a "mycelium parlour", with its darker, damper atmosphere providing suitable conditions for fruiting bodies to form on mycelial networks.
The project's focus on sustainability informed the use of various materials that would typically end up as waste, including paving slabs salvaged from previous show gardens.
The pavilion was constructed using timber felled due to ash dieback, which would usually be incinerated in a biomass plant. The woven panels, used for the facade and to add a crafted element inside the pavilion, were made with components that are too small for other uses.
▲ 一端設有一個“菌絲體客廳”
A "mycelium parlour" sits on one end
One of the structure's notable features was the use of ash strips to create the noggins that braced the roof joists. This technique, which Ahn suggested may be an industry first, utilises the material's fibrous properties to provide additional torsional strength.
"Normally, noggins are quite blocky and use timber in compression," Ahn pointed out, "but here we used timber in tension, which is much stronger."
"We wanted to demonstrate that material understanding and sensitive structural engineering can create a beautiful outcome, even with something as mundane as a noggin."
▲ 使用白蠟木條制作橫向支撐
Ash strips were used to create noggins
Studio Weave 事務所將該建筑設計成四個尺寸為3.2米x 3米x 3米的預制體量,以便于在展覽安裝的第一周內快速完成組裝。
Studio Weave designed the building to be prefabricated in four volumes measuring 3.2m x 3m x 3m, in order to facilitate speedy assembly within the first week of the show's installation.
The studio pointed out that, due to its use of native, locally harvested timber and mycelium, the pavilion provides a low-carbon and eco-friendly alternative to traditional structures that is also completely compostable.
▲ 預制展館可用于舉辦工作坊
The prefabricated pavilion was used for workshops
The Avanade Intelligent Garden and Building won a Gold Medal and Best Construction Award in Show at the annual garden show, repeating the success that Massey and Ahn's practice achieved in 2024 with their design for a garden with a rain-harvesting pavilion.
Following its appearance at Chelsea, the pavilion will move to a permanent home at Manchester's Mayfield Park, where it will retain its function of educating the community about the condition of urban trees.
▲ 它現在將被遷至曼徹斯特的梅菲爾德公園
It will now move to Manchester's Mayfield Park
Studio Weave事務所總部位于倫敦,業務遍及多個領域,致力于提供結合了社會理解和技術精度的獨特解決方案。
Studio Weave is based in London and operates across various sectors, delivering idiosyncratic solutions that combine social understanding and technical precision.
The studio's previous work includes a clifftop house in South Korea that is clad with pink concrete tiles, and an arched greenhouse filled with tropical plants that was designed to highlight London's rising temperature.
項目信息:
主創建筑師: Tom Massey,Je Ahn, Studio Weave
展廳設計: Studio Weave、Sebastian Cox
景觀承包商: Outdoor Room
工程設計: Foster Structures
客戶: Avanade
攝影:Daniel Herendi
Project credits:
Lead designers: Tom Massey and Je Ahn, Studio Weave
Pavilion: Studio Weave in collaboration with Sebastian Cox
Landscape contractor: Outdoor Room
Engineer: Foster Structures
Client: Avanade
The photography is by Daniel Herendi.