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BIODESIGN
AUDREY SPEYER Title: PuriFungi MycoPod, A Natural Aid Kit for the Earth Media: mycelium, organic substrate, soil, lignin-based material, ceramic Size: incubator–42 cm x 27 cm x 28 cm; mushroom/mycelium–variable Date: 2016–present Title: Champtray de Luxe, A Living Ashtray Media: mycelium, organic substrate, cigarettes butts, glass, charcoal Size: 20 cm x 20 cm x 20 cm Date: 2019 Biography: Trained as a Textile–Surface–Materials designer, Audrey Speyer completed her undergraduate degree and Art MA in Fashion at ESAA Duperré in Paris. She graduated in 2016 with a second MA in Material Futures at Central Saint Martins in London. Speyer is interested in crossover projects between design and science that have a sustainable impact on the environment. For her second MA degree, she researched the bio-technology of fungi that break down contaminants in the soil. Working with a laboratory in the UK, and scientific researchers from Kew Gardens (UK, Richmond) and CNRS (France, Paris), Speyer designed an incubator called MycoPod that is used to inoculate, harvest, and transport living mushrooms to polluted sites.
After exhibiting the MycoPod in Milan, Venice, London, and Paris in 2016, Speyer began a PuriFungi initiative to deploy MycoPods on polluted sites. During a recent hackathon, Speyer developed an ashtray—called Champtray—made of mycelium that grows on cigarette butts while absorbing contaminants from the butts. Her aim for Champtray is to create a waste channel specifically for butts, reduce environmental contamination, and make smokers aware of this kind of bio-remediation. Champtray de Luxe also absorbs the smell of cigarette butts. Speyer won a prize from the Move-Up festival for Champtray, and she has supplied mycelial ashtrays for the Cabaret Vert festival in France for August 2019.