This summer, an unusual structure grew outside the MoMA PS1 in Queens. The building is called Hy-Fi. Designed by architectural firm The Living, it consists of three circular towers a few stories tall. It resembles a lumpy set of industrial chimneys, or maybe a giant aorta — a little strange, in other words, if not particularly remarkable. Hy-Fi didn’t win the coveted MoMA spot for its looks, but for its substance: it’s made of mushrooms.

A video explaining the project imports historic significance to the apparently unassuming building in text overlaying a field of mushrooms growing in time-lapse: “If the 20th century was the century of physics . . . then the 21st century is widely seen to be the century of biology.” The Living, the video goes on to announce, is building a structure from “biological technologies” with the aim of creating a “new paradigm for design” — one that is self-assembling, industrial, and compostable.

Elsewhere, The Living proclaims itself to be “creating the architecture of the future” — in and of itself not a particularly noteworthy statement for a New York architectural firm straining for recognition. The particular future The Living envisions, however, is striking. Declaring its belief that cities and buildings are living, breathing organisms, The Living aims to create “living, breathing design ecosystems.” It’s not a metaphor.