Wood, concrete, and steel are a big no nos for these European researchers. They envision mankind living in natural, living, and eco-friendly monolithic structures made of living fungus. Yes, imagine tall stacks of structures made of mushrooms and other types of fungi. From the walls to the ceilings, all made of fungus.Researchers claim that these monolithic structures would revolutionize the environment and economy, as Futurism details:
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“We propose to develop a structural substrate by using live fungal mycelium,” reads the paper. “Fungal buildings will self-grow, build, and repair themselves.”
The idea is a response to the prospect of catastrophic climate change. Growing our building materials from biological materials, the theory goes, would make construction less dependent on fossil fuels and environmentally-destructive mining operations.
“Fungal materials can have a wide variety of mechanical properties ranging from foam-like to wood-like to polymer-like to elastomer-like,” Han Wösten, a microbiologist at The Netherlands’ Utrecht University who co-authored the not-yet-peer-reviewed paper, told Futurism. “The fact that we can make wood-like materials implies that we can use it for the building industry.”
So far, they say, no one else has explored the possibility of building monolithic structures out of living fungus.
“The selling point of our materials is that it is biodegradable, thereby helping to create a circular economy,” Wösten said. “At the same time, it should not degrade when actually used as a building material. We can work around this apparent paradox by coating the material. In fact, we also coat wood with paint of oils to protect it against degradation.”
“It may be that we will find a fungus that creates wood-like materials without the need of pressing,” he said.
Important to note: those ideas, like much of the team’s research, remain fairly speculative.
image via wikimedia commons
Source: neatorama