Student Design Awards winners: Tomorrow’s menu

Brief 8: How might we promote new relationships to food that are more secure, regenerative and culturally appropriate?

Winner: MYCOPOD

MYCOPODs are devices inserted into the ground in farmland that utilise the symbiotic relationship between plants and fungi designed to aid UK farming.

MYCOPODs create a communication, protection and transport network. This innovation has many benefits such as reducing the need for fertiliser by programming mycelium to move nutrients from nutrient banks and bio-diverse areas into crops. MYCOPODs will create impact by restoring natural balance to ecosystems and increasing local biodiversity.

Aaron Clark, Jordan Davies, Sebastian Hale and Reuben Parry
Loughborough University, England

Winner of £2,000 Future Food Award

Commendations

Highly commended

Kok Ian Saw, Plymouth University, England

MUNCH Project: Community-based system design for incorporating invasive species into our daily menus.

Andrew Quintal-Steytler, University of the West of England, England

Krafty Krop: A more sustainable and affordable means of producing food using a low-tech hydroponics system that promotes the use of discarded materials and urine as a fertiliser.

Commended

Molly Pincombe, Arts University Bournemouth, England

The Eternal Kitchen: A line of regenerative baby food that introduces uncommon ingredients that are more climate resilient.

In partnership:
Endorsed by:

[Working on the Student Design Awards] has reaffirmed my belief that the skills I have learnt as a student can be applied to the real world of design and have an impact.

MYCOPOD, 2023 winner Sebastian Hale