SQIM

MOGU is a design company that manufactures sustainable and innovative products with a strong aesthetic value and advanced performances. Starting from residues materials and by-products of other industrial processes, Mogu offers its one-of-a-kind products based on mycelium available on the market, as dedicated to interior design and architecture applications. These are cutting-edge products that can compete with conventional solutions, to foster a more sustainable approach to architecture. Products from Nature and for Nature. As part of our processes, we employ Nature’s intelligence to radically disrupt the design of everyday products, seeking a finer balance between the man-made and the rhythms of the natural ecosystem. Mogu products aim to shorten the gap between man and Nature, bringing the notion of the organic back into daily life, and into homes, offices and the entire systems which we create and which we are a part of. Hence, we bring Nature closer to people, meeting the needs of everyday life, both functionally and aesthetically. A vision of interior design that embraces Nature’s radical character, to establish a more honest relationship with the surrounding ecosystem. All systems and techniques created and adopted at Mogu are attentively designed to prevent pollution, preserve resources, reduce energy consumption and negative environmental impact - in short, to make sustainability an integral part of everything we create. Mogu processes are steadily founded on Circular Economy principles. As part of these, we process industrial waste materials such as cotton and hemp fibres that cannot find other valuable applications in textile production processes. Our daily goal, from R&D activities till manufacturing, is to convert such raw materials and valorise them into high performance products. We offer functional, beautiful and meaningful products with a durable and sustainable life cycle. We thrive to do this through industrial processes that have the lowest possible environmental impact.

With ephea, SQIM brings to market a radically innovative class of mycelium-based materials, setting high quality standards in luxury fashion. Engineered to achieve a low ecological footprint, ephea is grown from and consisting of fungal mycelium, the vegetative body of mushrooms. Thanks to a patented fermentation technology and to a deep understanding of the the related bio-technological processes, we let mycelium growing on low-value feedstocks, transforming them into innovative, high-value, and effectively responsible materials. Accordingly, it is possible to vary multiple parameters driving mycelium’s biological growth-cycle, to influence and optimises the deriving material’s properties. ephea harnesses the potential expressed by fungal microorganisms to allow for a fundamental shift from an extractive/exploitative to a thoroughly (re-)generative production paradigm rooted in bio-fabrication. In such way, ephea demonstrates that innovative natural materials hold the factual promise for the creation of a near future where human activities and the rhythms of the larger ecosystem are not in conflict with each other. Ranging from an appreciation for its premium haptics, to its overall consistency along production (i.e., biofabrication + innovative transformation technologies), ephea has received multiple recognitions from highly demanding industrial players exposed to the product, evaluating it as the leading mycelium-based alternative. All together, ephea sets the grounds to contribute to the creation of a novel fashion industry, that is responsibly rooted in re-generative processes, as driven by the desire to literally engage with life and for life.