Studio Cartier

Students get insight into the future of materials with @andycartier @raffiitch DIDI faculty taking students beyond the normal to explore what the industry has to offer.

Mycelium-infused fabric pouches in collaboration with @deenakhayyat ! 🍄 Pushing the process from @studiocartier , @numu.bio is presenting the first artefact made in mushroom fabric, conceived and manufactured in the UAE 🇦🇪. Stay tuned for the developments .. 👀

Excited to welcome another visionary leader to the MENA Impact community! Meet Andy Cartier, General Manager of NUMU — a bio-engineered materials platform building the Middle East’s first mycelium-based manufacturing infrastructure. NUMU transforms regional agricultural waste, such as palm fiber, into high-performance construction materials, replacing imported synthetic and mineral-based alternatives. With applications like interior acoustic panels, the company is bringing sustainable innovation to hospitality, commercial, and public spaces — while advancing circular economy and net-zero construction goals in the region. With a production lab in Dubai, real-world installations, and a proprietary process adapted to hot, arid climates, NUMU is laying the foundation for a new generation of locally made, bio-based materials. 👉 Are you an impact-driven founder or investor? Join the community now, link in bio. #MENAImpact #ImpactEntrepreneurship #CircularEconomy #Sustainability #MENAFounders

I’ve spent 7 years trying to make mycelium into real products Not experiments Not samples Real things people would actually use And honestly… most of it failed first Wrong substrate Wrong species Scaling too early Thinking like plastic instead of biology I’ve built surfboards, skateboards, panels, furniture, art pieces Across Europe, LA, now Dubai And the same problem keeps coming back People know how to grow it But not how to design with it So I’m opening everything I’m running a live masterclass where I break down what actually works, what doesn’t, and what I wish I knew earlier If you’re serious about building with mycelium, this is for you Comment “MYCELIUM” and I’ll send you the link Keep Growing 🍄 #mycelium #biomaterials #biodesign #materialdesign #sustainabledesign

🐪 Photoshoot in the desert 🐪 I’ve been growing canvases for years. Usually in controlled environments. Humidity. Darkness. Precision. This time, I placed them in sand. Mycelium meeting dryness. Gold reflecting sunset. Organic veins against an extreme landscape. Some pieces belong to the AURUM series. Others are part of a broader exploration of fungal material as aesthetic matter. Underground materials, gold and mycelium. I’m testing how they coexist. Should the desert be my new gallery ? Keep Growing 🍄 #bioart #myceliumart #landart #materialresearch #fungalartseries contemporaryart dubaiart

🟡 AURUM — FIRST REVEAL 🟡 First exhibition in Dubai, in @kavepeople . First piece of AURUM out in the world. I didn’t plan this collection as a “next step”. It came from a need to slow down and look closer at what was already there. The mycelium was doing its thing as always — growing, cracking, drawing its own logic. The gold came later. Not to decorate, but to reveal. To sit gently on what already existed and say: this is worth looking at. Showing this work in Dubai feels symbolic. New city, new rhythm, new pressure. Bringing something fragile, slow, and grown into a place that moves fast forced me to trust the process even more. This piece is the first of AURUM. Not perfect. Not controlled. But honest to how I work right now. Grateful to everyone who showed up, asked questions, touched the surface, stayed longer than expected. More to come. Amazing pictures by @salma.hani.ali Keep Growing 🍄 #AURUM #FungalArtSeries #StudioCartier #MyceliumArt #DubaiArt #BiobasedDesign #MaterialExperiment #LivingMaterials

Material works grown, not made. This exhibition explores mycelium not as a concept, but as a medium — shaped by time, humidity, pressure, and restraint. Each piece is grown from living matter, guided rather than controlled, allowing texture to emerge where biology decides. This body of work sits between art, material research, and architecture — where surfaces are not fabricated, but cultivated. 📍 KAVE, Alserkal Avenue 🗓 January 16–17, 2026

🍄 3D Printing & Mycelium 🍄 I’ve known @mirkodaneluzzo , cofounder of @nyxo_studio for a while now. He has been one of my first encounter in Dubai and the one introducing me to DIDI for my future lectures and workshops. After all these years, we finally decided to experiment together, there was no big plan or clear outcome. Just curiosity. Desert is a table inspired by the fossil dunes of the Emirati desert. Printed with foaming PLA, it’s lightweight, porous, and sculptural. The layering of the 3D print mirrors the way sand slowly accumulates, compresses, and turns into stone. Nothing rushed. Nothing forced. What interested me immediately was the material itself and also the story behind it, The inspiration coming from the Middle-Eastern landscape. As I’m working now on growing products with palm-tree waste, we tried something simple: letting mycelium inhabit the inside of the form.. As reinforcement. As vibration and sound dampening. As a living inner layer responding to a rigid, printed shell. As a material collaboration. This first piece isn’t a final object. It’s a test. A conversation between desert geology, machine logic, and biology. More to come. Keep Growing 🍄

Testing the mycelium mat prototype for @designdohabiennial ! Feels like walking on Mars surface 👽 #design #biennial #mycelium #experience #biobased

🌴 UNDERSTOREY - A natural shade 🌴 This project comes from a very simple reality: in the Gulf, shade is not a luxury — it’s a condition for working, resting, and recovering. Together with Dalia Hamati (@daliany / @studioda.designs ), we’re developing an experimental shading and resting system using traditional woven Haseera mats, made from palm fibers, and mycelium to give them structure and new possibilities. The mycelium acts as a biobased binder — not to replace the craft, but to freeze it in space, allowing a new configuration in 3d of the mats. To introduce curvature, strength, and soft structural behavior while keeping everything natural, biodegradable, and low-tech. What we’re showing now are prototypes. Material tests, early shapes, ergonomic trials. We’re testing how far we can push form and resistance using agricultural waste, living material, and simple construction logic. This research is developed for Arab Design Now, organized by the @designdohabiennial . The final piece will be revealed very soon. For now, this is about process, collaboration, and building quietly, starting from the ground up. Keep Growing 🍄 #DesignDoha #ArabDesignNow #Understorey #Mycelium BioDesign Shading MaterialResearch DesignProcess