Walking on Water Washington, DC

Services Provided

Design Competition

People Involved

Tim Bragan
Gaelle Gourmelon
Ainsley Rhodes

Awards

Washingtonian Magazine's Covid-19 Design Challenge

Modular, growable mycelium pathways expand the capacity Washington DC’s C&O Canal Trail of today while nourishing the gardens of tomorrow.

Washingtonian magazine invited designers to reimagine iconic public spaces to accommodate social distancing during the time of Covid-19. MKSK’s design, which was the featured entry,  envisions an artful solution to this particular problem: a floating promenade that allows Washingtonians to walk on water - expanding the capacity of the canal to safely accommodate larger crowds today and acting as a nutritional foundation for native plants tomorrow.

The floating promenade units are crafted from an innovative material: buoyant mycelium foam which leverages the strength of fungal “webs” to bind

versatile, sustainable, and functional material, farm waste, and wood chips. This wondrous (and seemingly unlikely) material has already been used as commercial packaging, as a building material, and as a substrate for floating wetlands planters.

Ultimately, this proposal seeks to respond to the cyclical nature of COVID-19 and a reduced dependence on global supply chains for materials. It is flexible, rapidly deployable, and multi-lived. It expands our understanding of water as public space and enhances existing grounds at a time when people are craving outdoor space the most.

Organic and biodegradable, the mycelium foam modules can be formed and grown in days, but will begin biodegrading into rich compost in a matter of months.  Thus, as the pandemic subsides, and the expanded promenade becomes obsolete, the modular units will begin their second life as a series of slowly decomposing sculptural landscape elements that create nourishing habitat for native plants.