Philip Ross

MUSHROOM BUILDING BIOMATERIALS

Philip Ross is a San Francisco based artist, inventor and scholar whose research is focused on biomaterial design and life support technologies. His innovations in fungus based engineering are globally recognized as foundational to the invention of mycotecture, the practice of building with mycelium. His work has recently been showcased by the New York Museum of Modern Art, the Hammer Museum, the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University, the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art and Germany’s Kunsthalle Düsseldorf.

BIOGRAPHY

Philip has been a visiting lecturer and professor at Stanford University, U.C. Berkeley, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the University of San Francisco. He has been a vital contributor to the Bay Area’s culture of open scientific practice through the numerous classes, workshops, salons, exhibitions and lectures he has offered over the last two decades on practical and cultural biotechnologies. Philip is a co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of MycoWorks, a company that creates sustainable design solutions with advanced biomaterials.

His work is driven by a life-long interest in biology. While he professes to have been “terrible in high school science and math,” his education about the life sciences emerged from a wide engagement with materials and practices. Through his work as a chef he began to understand biochemistry and laboratory methods; as a hospice caregiver he worked with life support technologies and environmental controls; and through his interest in wild mushrooms, he learned about taxonomies, forest ecology and husbandry. Each of those experiences has been instrumental in developing his unique perspective, and inspiring his groundbreaking work.