Near future
No Result
View All Result
25 September 2023
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Energy
  • Transports
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • H+
Understand, anticipate, improve the future.
CES2023 / Coronavirus / Russia-Ukraine
Near future
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Energy
  • Transports
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • H+

Understand, anticipate, improve the future.

No Result
View All Result
Architecture

A team of scientists thinks we should live in mushroom houses

A speculative and provocative paper by a team of European academics explores the possibility of living in houses made of mushrooms. Living building.

January 21 2020
Gianluca RiccioGianluca Riccio
⚪ 4 minutes
Share64Pin6Tweet17SendShare5ShareShare3

READ IN:

Imagine rolling out of bed onto a floor of living mushrooms that cushion your fall. The walls and the ceiling: no, wait, THE ENTIRE CONDOMINIUM, even the plumbing and electrical systems, are made of mushrooms.

Wood and concrete are remnants of a distant past: the whole damned city, from schools to shops, hospitals, is in houses made of mushrooms. Living organisms that grow, or die, or regenerate.

This is the vision shown in a new paper which I personally found really provocative. The team of European academics who proposed it claims it is the first ever exploration of the potential of the living mushroom as a raw material for futuristic and ecological "monolithic structures". According to them, it would revolutionize the entire environment and the economy as we know it.

Living in mushrooms (like the Smurfs!)

"We propose to develop a structural substrate using live fungal mycelium", reads in the document. "Fungal buildings will grow by themselves, build and repair themselves."

The idea is a truly creative response, I say this as an insider, to the prospect of catastrophic climate change.

The article continues after the related links

Floating bamboo houses: the green anti-flood idea comes from Vietnam

Revolution on site: the 10 materials of the future that will change the building industry

Making our buildings from biological materials would make construction less dependent on fossil fuels and environmentally damaging mining operations.

"Fungal materials can have a great variety of mechanical properties that mimic many materials: from foam to wood, to polymer, to elastomer". That's what it says Han Wösten, microbiologist at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, co-author of the paper (not yet peer-reviewed).

"The fact that we can produce wood-like materials means that we can also use it for construction."

Han Wösten, microbiologist - Utrecht University

Mushrooms in construction, fascinating but not new idea

Fungal architecture is not a new idea: other research groups have explored the idea of ​​growing building materials from mycelium and also from other living materials. Beyond the fact that mushrooms are surprising for many other reasons.

NASA, for example, is currently trying to figure out whether mushrooms can grow on Martian soil, to obtain an inexpensive way to grow space habitats locally.

All the projects already seen, however, all involve killing the fungus after its growth. A process that makes it even more robust as a building material.

So far, experts from the study say, no one else has explored the possibility of building monolithic structures from living mushrooms. Okay, okay. They seem very interested in affirming the birthright of this idea.

Mushroom houses

"The strength of our materials is that they are biodegradable, and thus contribute to a circular economy", said Wösten.

Mushroom houses: if they biodegrade, how do we live in them?

Wösten also has an answer to this question: to prevent mushroom houses from collapsing on our heads, we should coat them. A bit like wood, which we reinforce with lacquer and oil to make it more resistant and protective.

With a cladding, says Wöste, fungal architecture would stay alive: an architect could rejuvenate it by watering it with plain water and trigger further growth if repairs or changes were needed.

Thanks to the coatings, the team says, the mushrooms could also be used to take advantage of the internal structure of the mushroom capillaries to pass through a building's plumbing, electrical connections or other.

It is good to note, before being tempted to call Gargamel and ask him to wipe out the entire team, that much of the research is quite speculative.

Andrew AdamatzkyA computer scientist who also physically drafted the document said the team is working on building fungal versions of circuits and other electronic devices.

He admitted that conventional threads are cheaper and easier to work with, but added that "Living circuits in mushroom houses will be self-growing, self-assembling and self-healing, which no traditional circuit can do."

Mushroom houses, an unlikely but stimulating challenge

This is really a challenge. More than anything else, the opportunity to explore a physiology, or rather a construction biology.

The hypothesis that buildings can grow, self-repair, adapt in some way is suggestive and multiplies the efforts to create a circular economy also for construction.

Tags: Biomaterialsbuildingmushrooms

Latest news

  • NASA, recovered the sample from the asteroid Bennu: why it is important
  • Tesla and the new abilities of Optimus robots: "Ready for mass production"
  • EV, goodbye frequent charging: I-State promises over 1.000 km of autonomy.
  • Revolutionary generator transforms humidity into continuous electrical energy
  • All the maps of the future: from research tools to doors to tomorrow
  • The bizarre AI that translates the language of chickens
  • Jeddah Tower, construction site of the one kilometer high skyscraper reopens
  • Spider silk from modified silkworms: stronger than Kevlar and 100% natural
  • VIR-1388, HIV vaccine being tested in the USA and South Africa
  • MOWT, innovative floating hydroelectric for slow-flowing waters


GPT Chat Megaeasy!

Concrete guide for those approaching this artificial intelligence tool, also designed for the school world: many examples of applications, usage indications and ready-to-use instructions for training and interrogating Chat GPT.

To submit articles, disclose the results of a research or scientific discoveries write to the editorial staff

Enter the Telegram channel of Futuroprossimo, click here. Or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon e LinkedIn.

FacebookTwitterInstagramTelegramLinkedInMastodonPinterestTikTok

The daily tomorrow.


Futuroprossimo.it provides news on the future of technology, science and innovation: if there is something that is about to arrive, here it has already arrived. FuturoProssimo is part of the network ForwardTo, studies and skills for future scenarios.

  • Environment
  • Architecture
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Gadgets
  • concepts
  • Design
  • Medicine
  • Spazio
  • Robotica
  • Work
  • Transports
  • Energy
  • Edition Francaise
  • Deutsche Ausgabe
  • Japanese version
  • English Edition
  • Portuguese Edition
  • Read more
  • Spanish edition

Subscribe to our newsletter

  • The Editor
  • Advertising on FP
  • Privacy Policy

© 2023 Near future - Creative Commons License
This work is distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

No Result
View All Result
Understand, anticipate, improve the future.
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Energy
  • Transports
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • H+