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2026 Galleries // 2026 Spark: Spring Student // Musit

Musit

Entrant

Competition: Spark: Spring Student
Designer: Doryul Lee
Design Type: Sustainable furniture
Company / Organization / School: Daejin University
Team Members: Hyungyu Nam

1.Nature Builds, We Guide.


MUSIT's innovation is in a new way of cultivating mushroom mycelium to make furniture.
Mycelium mycelium uses wastes such as coffee grounds, rice straw, and wood shavings as nutrients to expand on its own within the culture frame to complete its shape. Instead of cutting, attaching, and molding materials in a factory like traditional furniture manufacturing, the biological growth process itself is a method of design and manufacturing at the same time. Mycelia naturally interweave with each other in this process, creating a hard yet smooth structure.
The reason why this culture is particularly significant to children is a firsthand understanding of the natural transmission and value of sustainability.
As a result, MUSIT transforms children's furniture from a simple "situation chair" to a "sustainable materials experience." Children can feel the cozy nature texture, play safely, and experience and understand firsthand by sitting and touching them every day. Our designs guide nature to grow and create designs on its own, without processing furniture directly.
2.Good childhood experiences remain strong memories.

MUSIT transforms the furniture children encounter daily into tools for exploration and learning, rather than mere objects. During early childhood, children understand the world most effectively through their senses—especially touch. These tactile experiences leave a much stronger impression than linguistic or visual cues. Consequently, MUSIT allows children to experience the organic and warm texture unique to natural materials while touching and sitting on the furniture, helping to reduce stress and achieve emotional tranquility.
Furthermore, the texture of mycelium provides a uniquely special sensory experience compared to synthetic materials. The natural texture that reveals the essence of the material gives children the intuitive experience that "this truly comes from nature." By frequently encountering such materials as part of their daily routine, children grow up to embrace eco-friendly values without hesitation, which creates an opportunity to become familiar with sustainable materials.
The design also prioritizes child safety and comfort. All edges are rounded to minimize the risk of injury, and the material itself provides a friendly sensation as if one is in direct contact with nature. Ultimately, as children use it and keep it by their side every day, MUSIT becomes a precious friend that helps them naturally build familiarity with sustainable materials.
3.Cultivating Value: A New Process Identity for a Circular Economy.

MUSIT creates a distinct business opportunity by establishing a unique market position in the children’s furniture sector, where authentic sustainable alternatives are remarkably scarce. While the current market is predominantly divided between the convenience of plastics and the aesthetics of processed wood, MUSIT introduces a revolutionary "cultivation-based manufacturing" identity. By leveraging this biological process, a brand can secure a premium "First Mover" advantage, evolving beyond a traditional furniture manufacturer into an innovative leader of the next-generation lifestyle.
From a strategic perspective, this design serves as a powerful tool to build profound brand loyalty among "Green-sumers" and the new generation of parents who prioritize environmental integrity as a primary consumption criterion. An authentic ecological process is not merely a marketing narrative; it is a tangible asset that substantially enhances a company’s ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) metrics. Furthermore, the use of 100% biodegradable mycelium materials offers long-term economic efficiency by drastically reducing the social and economic liabilities associated with product disposal and end-of-life management.
Ultimately, MUSIT does more than just bestow an innovative image upon the brand. it serves as a core strategic portfolio piece proving that ecological sincerity can directly translate into commercial viability and expanded market share. By merging biological innovation with market-driven design, MUSIT provides a blueprint for brands to navigate the future of the circular economy while capturing the hearts of environmentally conscious consumers.
4.Feel sustainability through everyday familiarity.

The primary societal value of MUSIT lies in its ability to deliver unfamiliar sustainable materials in a form that is easiest for children to understand. While environmental issues are an urgent challenge of our time, there are limits to explaining them to children solely through theoretical knowledge. By visualizing mycelium—an unfamiliar sustainable material—into the friendly form of a "mushroom-shaped stool," MUSIT helps children build an emotional bond with new materials without any hesitation.
This familiarity establishes a new standard for sustainability within a child's subconscious. For children who grow up seeing and touching furniture made from sustainable materials, nature is no longer a distant subject to be protected from afar, but a close companion that shares their daily life. Ultimately, through design permeated into children's daily routines, MUSIT provides the societal benefit of helping the next generation grow up learning how to coexist with the Earth through their senses.
5.Experience the material in a familiar form.

We put the most importance on aesthetics that stimulates children's curiosity and allows them to understand naturally by their senses. I wanted to make children feel and understand the subject matter as they naturally reach out and touch it.
So I chose the form of mushrooms.
Mycelium mushrooms are unique materials that feed on waste. But they are unfamiliar and difficult for children. We created the most familiar and friendly form of "mushroom" for easy understanding of the material, mycelium, allowing children to instantly recognize "Oh, it's a mushroom!" Excluding artificial decoration or complicated shapes, they show round, soft shapes and natural ivory tones and surfaces.
The hard wooden pillars at the bottom contrast to the slippery texture of processed wood or synthetic materials, while the organic and soft mycelium stands at the top stimulate children's curiosity with their distinctive live-like texture.
After all, MUSIT's aesthetics are "letting children see with their eyes, touch with their hands, feel with their bodies, and communicate with their materials." Through the form of mushrooms and the organic texture of mycelium, we have completed an intuitive aesthetic that allows us to embrace unfamiliar eco-friendly materials in a friendly and sensuous way. This is the aesthetics of MUSIT that we think is unique.