A Mycelium Canoe?!
- Ashley Goldbirch
- Jan 10
- 4 min read
Trying to Grow a Boat (Before Knowing How to Grow a Boat)
This project isn’t finished. The boat doesn’t exist yet. And honestly, that feels important to say upfront.
Right now, Spore & Stream is a mix of sketches, test samples, spreadsheets, conversations, and a slightly alarming number of unanswered questions. The plan is to grow a canoe out of mycelium and paddle it down the River Wye — but the reality is that I’m still figuring out how you even take on something you’ve never done before.
And maybe that’s the most useful part to share.
Starting without a roadmap
I didn’t wake up one morning knowing how to grow a boat.
I’ve worked with mycelium materials before — bricks, panels, weird experiments that lived in corners of workshops. I’ve paddled rivers. But scaling fungi up to something that’s meant to float, hold weight, and survive moving water? That’s new territory.
There are people who’ve done this before — mainly in the US. A few years back I came across projects where individuals had grown small boats and kayaks from mycelium, testing hulls, patching cracks, learning the hard way what works and what really doesn’t. Reading about those projects was reassuring, not because they were perfect, but because they were an exploration. Boats leaked. Designs changed. Things broke and got fixed.
Pretty much every project I have ever done has started out the same way, an outcome and a concept to use a novel material with no idea if it would actually work! This was no different with the Ledbury Restaurant, one of the first large projects I had taken on - saying yes to the client and then realising I would have to find a way to grow 400kg of substrate, in one go, in my house with a spare room as a lab...
These sort of projects give me the fuel and motivation to explore and take risks, they challenge methods and techniques in an industry that is still evolving and being understood.
The first real step: writing down what I don’t know
Before I started anything, I made a list of questions. Not goals — questions.
Things like:
How thick does a mycelium hull actually need to be? Does it need coatings?
What fails first: structure, water resistance, or my own confidence?
Is it possible to use only compostable materials for its construction?
How do you combine wood, fibres, and fungi without one undoing the other?
That list keeps growing. And instead of hiding it, the project is shaped around it. This isn’t about proving mycelium can do everything — it’s about understanding where it works, where it doesn’t, and what we can learn in between.
Making it smaller than your fear wants it to be
Whenever the project feels overwhelming, I shrink it.
I’m not “growing a canoe” most days. I’m growing:
small test tiles
curved samples that crack
pieces that absorb way too much water
things that float surprisingly well
The big idea only survives because it’s broken into very unglamorous steps. Baths instead of rivers. Buckets instead of hulls. Conversations instead of conclusions.
Asking for help before you feel legitimate
This has been one of the hardest parts.
Reaching out to boatbuilders, scientists, organisers, and saying: “Hi, I’m thinking of growing a boat. I haven’t done this before. Does this sound ridiculous?”
Most people don’t laugh. They ask questions. They share warnings. They suggest smaller tests. A few say “that’s ambitious” in a way that means be careful, not don’t try.
The project has slowly become a shared thing — shaped by people who know rivers, materials, fungi, events, communities. It’s less about me having answers and more about holding the space where questions can be worked through together.
Designing the project around learning, not success
There’s no version of this where everything goes smoothly.
Something will crack. Something will absorb too much water. Something will need patching on a riverbank.
Instead of seeing that as failure, the project is built to absorb it. If something breaks, that becomes a workshop. If a material doesn’t work, that becomes documentation. If plans change, that becomes part of the story.
The boat is important — but the process is the point.
Why I’m sharing this now (before it’s done)
It’s tempting to only talk about projects once they’re finished and tidy. But that creates the illusion that things like this start with confidence and clarity.
They don’t - they start with curiosity, discomfort, spreadsheets that don’t balance yet, and the willingness to look a bit unprepared in public.
If you’re holding an idea that feels too big, too unfamiliar, or too unfinished to share — that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start. It might mean you’re right at the beginning.
Thank you for your time!
This boat isn’t grown yet. But the learning has already started.
If you are interested in joining the project, you can submit an application form through the link here: https://lnkd.in/e8FqzFU4
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