BCI 3 - Exploring Systems in Nature

Sunday, Jan 29th 2023 - Kelsey Round Lake, Andover MN

Another visit out to Kelsey Round Lake in freezing cold weather at about 5 degrees F. I continued my walk and stop-to-reflect method to keep myself warm. I didn’t dare to take out my hands out of my gloves and pockets to take photos, so these photos are from my previous visits, but I included sketches I did after the walk.

For this walk, the focus was to explore systems.

We can consider the park of Kelsey Round Lake to be the bigger system with the boundary being the physical area of the park. Kelsey Round Lake includes prairie, wetland, and forest - the sub-systems. They are tied together by being in Kelsey Round Lake and can be explored via paved sidewalks. Each sub-system is differentiated based on the type of plants being grown; forests are dominated by trees, prairies include grasses and wildflowers, and wetlands consist of water oriented plants.

Another system that can be considered in our system of Kelsey Round Lake is fungi. Fungi is made up of the fruiting body -mushrooms - and the roots - mycelium. (Did you know all fungi has mycelium but not all fungi produce mushrooms?) Mycelium is known to transfer nutrients between trees in a forest between itself and other trees. The vast underground network of this mycelium is known as the Wood Wide Web.

I’ve recently been fascinated with mycelium to explore design applications. The Wood Wide Web demonstrates communal support and collaboration. How might we design organizations, businesses, products, etc. that support collaboration over competition utilizing mycelium as inspiration?

Curious Thoughts -

Mycelium is an important collaborator in forests. However, does mycelium connect with different plant species other than trees? Is there a network that crosses different eco-system types? Is there different types of mycelium for various eco-systems?