Rara Larasati

Curious and always thinking, Rara Larasati is an Indonesian designer who is currently studying in London. She loves to collaborate with different people from diverse backgrounds and loves to mix science, technology and design in the creation of new human interactions, products and experiences that foster behavioural change and generate value for society in the future. For the Talent Pressure Cooker of 2017, she envisioned how mushrooms and biotechnology can create a more sustainable environment.

Her work Mycoboard is the microscale representation of isolated green spaces in the urban environment, which can be transformed and linked to each other using the oldest, largest, and most ubiquitous organisms found in the natural history of this planet: fungi. As urban environments increase with global population, we’re beginning to recognize the potentially harmful impact that urbanization has on the natural habitat, wildlife, and our own physical and psychological well being. As a result the demand for natural environments and green space within cities is becoming greater. Mycoboard is a biological circuit composed of various green components, such as plants, weed, soil, and minerals, that are connected by mycelium (fungi roots). The interaction between these elements and the mycelium allows for various symbiosis to be performed: soil mineral can be shared, nutrients can be exchanged, a threat can be blocked, and connections can be formed from separated green spaces into beautifully complex infrastructures that are alive, and evolve with their environment. With the power of the underground network, they can grow separately-integrated as an ecosystem, which does not only connect plants among each other but also connects humans to nature.