Grown acoustic panels for a noisy classroom

Observe

Classrooms in older school buildings are hard-surfaced and loud. Students measured reverberation in a sample room with a phone app and photographed the surfaces. The ceiling tiles were petroleum foam, installed years ago and now yellowed.

Investigate

Mycelium composites grown through rice husk and sawdust have been reported to absorb sound at speech frequencies. The team read the materials literature, visited a mushroom grower, and learned which substrates were available locally as waste.

Imagine

Rather than a product, the proposal is a service: a school grows its own panels in a small room each term, students maintain them, and old panels are composted in the school garden. The speculative component is the set of rituals, labels and responsibilities this would require.

Prototype

Three substrate mixes were grown in identical moulds, dried and weighed. Absorption was estimated with an impedance tube at a partner workshop. Batches, parameters and failures are recorded in the project notebook.

Communicate

An exhibition panel, a short film of the growing process, and a one-page proposal for the school. The presentation is honest about the composite's weaknesses: water sensitivity, variation between batches, and the absence of fire-rating data.

Findings

Not applicable for a sample project. A real project would present the absorption coefficients against the commercial panel and discuss what the numbers do and do not show.