Bento, a four-person architecture studio in Brussels, designs buildings from locally available bio-based materials — clay, straw, hemp, cork and mycelium — rather than shaping a volume first and applying a material afterward, De Tijd reported. The studio, whose founders met at the La Cambre Horta architecture faculty of the Université libre de Bruxelles, put that approach on an international stage at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale.
The studio traces its method to a graduation project in Benin, where the founders spent their first month on site observing, visiting and talking before drawing anything. There they learned to start from the materials actually available and their limits — a method that still forms the basis of the studio’s work, according to the interview.
Four Founders, One Graduation Project in Benin
Florian Mahieu and a fellow student, Charles, studied together from the first year at La Cambre Horta; the interviewee joined later for a master’s program. Florian and the interviewee first worked closely together on their graduation project in Benin, where they discovered not only earthen construction but a different way of looking at architecture. Before leaving, the group attended an introductory workshop on building with earth whose message was to go into the field, see which materials exist, what they cost and what dimensions they have, and to meet craftspeople and talk with elders.
The studio is now four people strong. Corentin Mahieu, Florian’s brother and a designer, officially joined last year after already working regularly with the team — a move the interviewee compared to Genesis realizing Phil Collins was already in the band.
Designing With the Material, Not Onto It
Bento’s central principle is that the material helps determine the form. Concrete and steel gave modern architecture great freedom through their mechanical properties, the studio says, while natural materials bring different constraints — constraints that do not mean less freedom, but require architects to relearn what a material can do, under what conditions, at what price and within which regulatory framework. The studio designs with the material, not a form onto which a texture is applied afterward.
Among the materials, clay stands out for the interviewee, even though the regulatory framework makes it difficult to use everywhere. For public projects in France, the company Bento works with, Origin Rénovation, developed a clay brick together with a local brickworks and funded fire tests to make its use legally possible.
Mycelium Domes in Rome and London
Mycelium — the root structure of fungi — is the material that put the studio on the map, though it remains one of many possibilities. The studio has so far applied it mainly in installations and scenography. At the Villa Medici in Rome, Bento built a dome of mycelium tiles on a wooden structure to test how the material behaves outdoors. For the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the studio is currently making a vault of tiles using Trametes versicolor, a naturally red mycelium. The studio’s ambition is a pavilion in which mycelium forms the load-bearing structure, combined with a sound installation.
For the 2023 Venice Biennale, the studio worked with clay, mycelium and wood. The challenge there, the founders said, was not to present a catalogue of “sustainable” materials but to show that three local raw materials together can form a space that is beautiful.
Why Clients and Regulators Remain Hard to Convince
Convincing clients remains difficult, the studio says.
The studio does not see itself as ecological activists. The question it prefers to ask is how to design architecture in a world with finite raw materials. Natural materials alone will not eliminate the construction sector’s CO₂ emissions, the founders note; orientation toward sun and wind, limiting demolition, reusing materials and rethinking construction techniques all matter too. In some projects the studio uses concrete for foundations because soil conditions currently require it.
Influences and the Wish List
The Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy’s book “An Architecture for People” was a revelation for the studio, pleading for an architecture of common sense: building with earth, adapted to the climate and rooted in the transfer of knowledge. French architect Simon Teyssou inspires the studio with his work on rurality and local materials, and in Brussels, Rotor and BC Architects are key references, along with encounters with firms such as HBAAT, LPPA and Label. Encounters on the building site weigh as heavily as big names: the architects, craftspeople and contractors the studio works with feed its projects directly.
If a client gave Bento carte blanche tomorrow, the top of the wish list would be a public building — a school, a theater hall or a cultural center — because that is where so many societal questions converge. In a more experimental register, the studio dreams of the load-bearing mycelium pavilion with a sound installation: an experience that is simultaneously spatial, material and acoustic.
Questions Readers Ask About Bento’s Materials
Can a fungus really become a structural building material?
Not yet at full scale, according to the studio. Mycelium has so far been used in installations and scenography, including a dome at the Villa Medici in Rome and a vault for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, while the load-bearing pavilion remains a stated ambition.
Why don’t more builders use clay, straw and hemp?
Production remains limited and the economics are unfavorable: energy is cheap while human labor is heavily taxed, so labor-intensive materials struggle to compete with concrete, the studio says. Regulatory hurdles also remain, which is why partners such as Origin Rénovation funded fire tests to legalize a clay brick for public projects in France.
Worth a look