Architect Christopher Maurer is passionate about mushrooms, but thinks more about their architectural potential than their culinary application. He believes the use of mycelium, the filaments that mushrooms use as roots, is one of the keys. It is fire resistant, mold and water resistant and can reach a higher hardness than concrete of the same weight. Although slower than other construction solutions such as concrete, its manufacturing process is relatively simple. It suffices to inject the living mycelium into an organic substrate and grow it into the desired shape. It is then hardened and ready for use after a heat treatment to interrupt growth. Substrates can also be made from all kinds of waste, from agricultural waste to demolition site materials. That’s not all. Mycelium can take any shape, depending on the mold chosen.
Maurer is not the only staunch proponent of a field that might be called MycotectureAnother example is the Hy-Fi Tower designed by architect David Benjamin. The structure was built from 10,000 mycelium bricks as part of a demonstration at his MoMa, the Museum of Modern Art in New York. But Maurer is moving to a more advanced concept. sustainable architecture.
Portable machine for producing mycelium bricks, Biocycler
We recently talked about Trashpresso, a wheeled plastic recycling machine that manufactures building slabs and travels to the top of the Himalayas. However, this is not the only portable system that uses waste to produce building materials. The Biocycler is based on a similar concept, but instead of producing plastic material, it produces bricks of mycelium. The main raw materials are wood and cellulose-based waste from construction.
The Biocycler is a portable container that can be moved to high waste areas. The machine processes the wood, removes varnish and other chemicals, and finally produces mycelium bricks. So far, its first structure is her city of 500,000 inhabitants. But not human. Instead, it houses a colony of bees.
Biohab, mycotecture from Namibia
Another of their projects is Biohab, created in collaboration with MIT. The philosophy is similar, but the approach is slightly different. Instead of using construction waste, this machine uses invasive shrubs such as Acacia mellifera. Shrubs are processed on-site to yield edible mushrooms, in addition to producing bricks for building houses. In addition to bricks and mushrooms, you can also make fuel and animal feed. A pilot project was conducted in Namibia where Acacia mellifera is very common and at the same time there is an urgent need for a low-cost building material.
From MIT to NASA
But if there’s one place where building materials are hard to come by, it’s Mars. These projects, which focus on the use of fungi, have therefore aroused NASA’s interest. NASA sees mycotecture as a viable alternative for building housing solutions on other planets. A US agency is funding a project based on sending algae and fungal spores to the Red Planet. The mycelium then feeds on this organic matter to produce the required bricks or modules. Her goal is to have humans there by 2030, and the race is already underway to design new architectural solutions for Mars.
sauce: construct connect
photograph: bio hub
