Living Materials as co-designers: mycelium, robotics, humans and regenerative futures. Designing Futures by Doing: co-creation with Living Materials and Autonomous Systems.

The Growing Futures project investigates a mycelium–robot–human ecosystem in which designers, mycologists, engineers, and living systems collaboratively engage in regenerative and adaptive practices. In response to resource depletion and the urgency for sustainable alternatives, the project positions living materials as active co-designers, shifting the designer’s role from material user to mediator within a multispecies and technology-mediated ecosystem. Through iterative prototyping, speculative exploration, and interdisciplinary collaboration, Growing Futures develops a process-oriented framework for co-creation with living materials. The methodology combines controlled and unconstrained mycelium growth, sensor-based monitoring, and robotic nutrient delivery, enabling dynamic adaptation to environmental conditions and emergent material behaviors. Mycelium’s regenerative potential and responsiveness allow materials to act as partners, informing and shaping design decisions in real time. The project emphasizes relational, process-based design over finalized products, demonstrating how adaptive, collaborative, and ecologically attuned practices emerge through negotiation between human intention, biological agency, and technological mediation. Experimental iterations explore variations in autonomy, environmental constraints, and material responses, producing insights into how bio-integrated systems can support regenerative construction, product design, and environmental restoration. By framing materials as co-creators and emphasizing process over fixed outcomes, Growing Futures advances a model of anticipatory design that fosters more-than-human futures. This paper contributes a replicable methodology for integrating living materials, robotics, and speculative design into regenerative design practices.