Belgium-based architecture practice BENTO inundates one with both its name and the discursive material and spatial explorations undertaken by the studio. Dedicated to rethinking architecture in a world of finite resources, the studio experiments with bio-based and geo-based materials that are rooted in the territories that BENTO works and builds on. The studio, via its research-intensive exploratory process, intends to enhance the relationship between living and non-living entities in ways that facilitate mutual responsiveness.

Initially founded by four architects, the studio is currently headed by Charles Palliez, Florian Mahieu and Corentin Dalon, who collectively refer to themselves as architects, curators, scenographers and material researchers. Over the years, the studio has worked on designing social welfare architecture such as a centre for orphans, undertaken material research with various living materials particularly mycelium, and participated and displayed their works at various international residencies, exhibitions and events such as TerraFibra architectures in Paris, 52 Hertz at Centre d'Art Contemporain du Luxembourg Belge in Belgium, the Unbound exhibition at Unseen Amsterdam Photography Fair in 2023 and within the Belgian Pavilion at Venice Architecture Biennale (VAB) 2023, among many others.

BENTO participated in VAB 2023, with Vinciane Despret, to present the installation In Vivo, as part of the Belgian Pavilion. The multisensory spatial exhibit explored the potential of mycelium and other natural living entities, from Brussels, as building materials. The showcase was segmented into three parts, each presenting the story of the materials, the providers and the craftsmen from Brussels, respectively.

The exhibition was further accompanied by the publication of the book In Vivo - Living in Mycelium, which documents the procedures undertaken to make the pavilion. There’s a great deal of inspiring stimulus that narratives about mushrooms and fungi can yield, as is redolent in these words by Anna Tsing in her 2015 book The Mushroom at the End of the World, “The uncontrolled lives of mushrooms are a gift—and a guide—when the controlled world we thought we had fails.” It is this rousing sentiment that is also evocatively redolent in the book, In Vivo - Living in Mycelium, which is drafted as a piece of speculative fiction narrating the studio’s dreams of utilising mycelium to make buildings that are regenerative and sentient. 

More recently, these discourses resurfaced at the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) in late 2024, where BENTO, represented by Dalon at the event Building with Mycelium: Towards the Symbiocene?, participated in a dialogue on the potential of mycelium as a regenerative material. This was also accompanied by the presentation of the documentary In Vivo—portraying BENTO’s work in setting up the Belgian pavilion at VAB in 2023—by Mister Emma.

BENTO currently has most of its active projects in Brussels, the southern French-speaking portions of Belgium and northern France. With a primary focus on utilising natural and local materials whilst also keeping each project economically sustainable, the studio utilises hempcrete, lime plasters, earth blocks, cellulose and wood for construction and insulation.

Having experimented with mycelium extensively, the studio is now able to create entities of various scales and types. However, the usage of mycelium as a construction material has still not culminated. Instead, the studio dabbles in scenographies, furniture design and smaller and lighter installations. “In the field of art, you can experiment, you can build stuff in a short time. It really helps the direct research. And, if it fails, that also becomes part of the learning process. But, of course, the goal is not to fail, but to find better processes,” Dalon shares with STIR.

In order to gain a better understanding of the studio’s processes, inspirations and theories, STIR interacted with Dalon, who cites his inspiration in various studios and practitioners such as BC Architects from Belgium and Simon Teyssou from France, among others, over a video call. Edited excerpts from the conversation are below.

Almas Sadique: Tell us about the beginnings of BENTO and the experimental procedures undertaken at the studio.

Corentin Dalon: We created BENTO in 2020 in Brussels, Belgium, as an association. It was four of us, all architects—François [Willemarcq], Charles [Palliez], Florian [Mahieu] and I, Corentin [Dalon]. We all studied at the Faculté d’Architecture La Cambre Horta, one of the French-speaking universities in Brussels. So, our last project as students took us to Benin [in West Africa], where we spent two years building a centre for orphans in the countryside using local materials with local craftsmen. Our interest in local, bio-based and geo-based materials emerged from there. The project was later a finalist for the TerraFibra Award, which is an architectural prize that recognises [innovative use of] earth and fibre-based materials.

When we came back from Benin, we discovered an article by a designer from the Netherlands who was experimenting with mycelium to design furniture. This material further intrigued us. Around this time, we began BENTO as an association, not a company. This gave us the freedom to experiment without having to earn anything to give to the state. We took the time to learn and understand how mycelium works in general, what its characteristics are and how it can be applied to construction.

Using this knowledge, we began making simple bricks. We then discovered that if we incubate four bricks together, they could naturally fuse without any mortar because the growing mycelium binds with each other. From there, we made wall blocks. From those bricks, we made a bench, embedding a hidden wooden structure inside. As the mycelium grew, it bonded with the wood, making it part of the whole. This led us to make a bigger table, which is now in our lab and will be exhibited at the Design Museum in London from July [2025].

We have always started small and then upscaled little by little. We have also learnt a lot about growing mycelium. It is a very fragile process, and everything needs to be sterilised, from the substrates to the binder and the mould. You also need to let the mycelium grow inside a black room with controlled humidity and temperature. After two weeks or so, you let it dry. When these processes are not followed properly, the mycelium’s capacity to create a structure gets destroyed. Once, during an artist residency, everything got contaminated, and we lost the entire batch. This helped us understand the importance of maintaining temperatures and humidity if we wanted to upscale.

So, our making process starts from a small grid of recipes, which helps us finalise the composition for different uses. Stronger and heavier mixtures for benches and tables, and lighter ones for insulating elements [such as] the one we had at Venice [Architecture Biennale]. It was more about the skin and its acoustic and thermal insulation than its load-bearing capacity. So, for our recipes, we experimented a lot and also compared them against other natural materials, such as earth construction.

Almas: What is the story behind the name of the studio?

Corentin: Initially, we wanted to call it by a funny French name, Boîte à Tartines, but it was too long. So, we went with BENTO, which has the same meaning, a food box. The idea is that, just like you have boxes within a box that allow you to organise food systematically, our experimental recipes of mycelium, too, visually looked like a grid or a bento box with different substrates and mixtures. So, that’s the story behind the name. We also didn’t want to name the studio after our names. BENTO is the sort of name that’s short, easy to remember, and we can apply it to research, design, etc. So, we have BENTO Architecture, BENTO Research and so on.

We renovate as much as possible, demolish as little as possible. And, when we renovate, we try to add as many natural materials as we can. – Corentin Dalon

Almas: Does BENTO make use of traditional processes and construction materials in their work?

Corentin: We try to use traditional methods and materials where possible. We tried to use rammed earth in southern France, where it is historically rooted. But, due to modern regulations, especially around earthquakes, it’s hard to get approval for this building material. Although we have built using rammed earth for centuries, it now requires complementary tests to get approval, which is costly. So, sometimes it’s possible to use traditional methods, but the process is hard and expensive. For private buildings, it’s easier to experiment with traditional methods if the client agrees, but we have not worked on such a project yet. Since using natural materials is expensive for both public and private projects, I would say that I prefer tested options like compressed blocks. For using traditional materials, you need projects and good subjects!

Almas: Does your work with mycelium involve lending it a certain sentience, or a sense of being that's not entirely static but evolving?

Corentin: When we create mycelium objects, we have two options. One is to let it dry, which puts the material to sleep, using UV shock. We find this interesting because it can just be reactivated later. The other option is to kill it by heating it to 70 degrees Celsius. The mycelium dies, but the material remains in a strong state without losing its characteristics. But when you kill a living material, I think you lose the most interesting part of it, which is its potential to cure itself.

So, when we built a table for a design fair in Brussels last year, it shrank while drying, leaving voids in between. After the exhibition, we cured the table by placing fresh mycelium on it and letting it grow under suitable conditions. It grew again and cured itself. So, that’s really interesting. But that’s also a reason why it’s hard to apply it to buildings. But, if we could use it to make buildings in the future, it would be very easy to just cure the walls instead of demolishing them.

Similarly, we also collaborate with different organisations and research groups to experiment with the material. [For instance], the Vrije Universiteit Brussels has a department that works across three fields: engineering, architecture and microbiology. They develop mycelium samples to see how it can cure itself, how it can be applied, etc. They have recently worked with leather, which can cure itself. So, we collaborate with the university to further experiment with the material and understand its potential.

Almas: What would you say are some ways in which fungi can become an intrinsic part of our built environment?

Corentin: I’d say it would be very easy to apply to walls. We could have prefabricated wooden structures insulated with mycelium. In a more utopian sense, I don’t know if it will occur while we’re alive, but we could imagine making a building grow on site or curing a building on site.

Almas: How can the current state of the Anthropocene be improved for a healthier future?

Corentin: I think there are two answers. A short-term and a long-term one. The short-term answer is that we need to decarbonise as much as possible by using natural materials and working with local craftsmen. As architects, we need to understand what a material can do and design accordingly, rather than first designing and then making the materials work. As for the long-term measures, we need to go deeper into the traditional making processes and speculate how the walls, roofs and floors of our buildings can be made using natural materials and without destroying the land. Like, for example, what is interesting with mycelium is that you start from a very small amount of material, and it grows [so it’s regenerative]. Also, hemp is a very good fibre. It grows very fast and keeps feeding the soil. You can use it as a substrate with lime or mycelium. On the other hand, if you want to use the earth for construction, you need to excavate. You will still start from a big hole somewhere. You damage the land, and you lose material, even if it’s natural. I’d say we need to save as much as possible, even if it’s a natural material.

We could imagine [for the future] making buildings grow on site, curing a building on site, using mycelium to design entities that can interact with each other and with us. – Corentin Dalon

Almas: There are various speculative realities, such as the Symbiocene or Chthulucene, imagined as the next epoch. What are your thoughts on what’s next?

Corentin: Yes, there are a lot of new words. We talk a lot about Mycelocene (a new era characterised by the recognition of sponges and their relationship with humans) because it is based on our research on mycelium. So, there’s Symbiocene, Mycelocene, the answers are multiple. You need those kinds of concepts to open the doors. But we need to centre natural processes more now. For instance, in Belgium, we have built a lot, and now it’s saturated. So, we need to renovate as much as possible and demolish as little as possible. We have to ask ourselves how we can let nature thrive, feed the soils without chemical supplementation and ensure the growth of good food and clean water. So, whatever comes next, the Symbiocene or the Mycelocene, we need to do our part. We need to fight for this as architects because construction represents nearly 25 to 30 per cent of the carbon emissions. So, we need to educate ourselves and discuss these topics more often.