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A new design from BIG made using 3D printing and mycelium additives is being showcase at a manufacturing summit for industry stakeholders in Scandinavia. The firm says it is "aimed at exploring new ways to reduce spatial and material waste through additive manufacturing and bio-based... View full entry
A team of engineers from the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley has secured funding for their innovative Mycotecture Off Planet project. The initiative hopes to construct off-planet sustainable housing and furniture designs from mycelial composite bricks. The $2 million in funding will... View full entry
A new experimental demonstration glamping concept that represents likely the first building project made using mycelium in the Czech Republic has debuted from the home reconstruction financier Buřinka with a cross-disciplinary team from Mykilio and the Czech Technical University called MYMO... View full entry
Repeated calls for the decarbonization of architecture are sometimes met with criticisms as to their lack of substance, and in some cases, practicality or overall feasibility, Canada's National Observer tells us. The only mycelium binders on the market are, for example, unsuitable to certain... View full entry
Japanese regenerative architectural design studio tono Inc. has designed a sustainable residence noted for its positive impact on the surrounding environment. Image: Rui Nishi Located on the southern Japanese island of Yakushima, Sumu Yakushima applies regenerative architecture to reconceptualize... View full entry
New York City firm Studio Link-Arc has created an installation in Shenzhen formed from 400 hanging mushroom bricks. Titled 'Mushroom Brick Pyramids,' the project was created for the 2022 Shenzhen Biennale, which adopted the theme ‘More than Human Adventure.’ Photo credit: Yu Bai Seeking to... View full entry
Researchers at Penn State are undertaking a study into whether fungal materials can replace traditional acoustic insulation funded by the 2022 AIA Upjohn Research Initiative. The team behind the effort, funded in 2021 by both an AIA Upjohn Research Initiative grant and a SOM Foundation... View full entry
Megadeveloper Lendlease is one of the entities behind a new study into the use of mushrooms as a means of decarbonizing construction waste through their application on discarded asphalt roofing shingles. The company teamed with Rubicon Technologies, Mycocycle, and Rockwood Sustainable Solutions to... View full entry
The University of Virginia (UVA) campus has become the showground for an array of creative structures built from natural materials. The Biomaterial Building Exposition (Bio-Build Expo for short) was organized by the university’s architecture school and showcases the possibilities of organic... View full entry
A study conducted by Javier Fernandez and colleagues from Singapore University of Technology and Design provides research that the bioinspired material, chitin, would be a viable building material for Mars inhabitation and tool production. Fernandez shares with Universe... View full entry
Waste from construction and demolition sites accounts for approximately 15-30% of all landfill content in the United States. According to NASA's estimates, more than 500 million tons of often non-biodegradable building materials containing carcinogens and other toxins are sent off to the junkyard... View full entry
The company argues that organic waste would ameliorate rising levels of waste and shortfalls of raw material, as well as providing industry with cheap, low carbon materials. — Global Construction Review
Beyond being delicious, peanuts, rice, bananas, potatoes and mushrooms have something else in common—they are all being proposed by Arup group as potential building materials in their new report titled "The Urban Bio-Loop." THE BIOLOOP Nature becomes an endless source of feedstock for... View full entry
To most people, mushrooms are a food source. To mycologist (mushroom scientist) Philip Ross, fungi are much, much more. In fact, Ross is most passionate about mushrooms’ ability to be used for building materials and it is this is what he primarily focuses his attention on. Recently, the mycologists figured out how to make bricks from growing fungi that are super-strong and water-, mold- and fire resistant. — Truth Theory
Referred to as "mycotecture," the mushroom bricks originally were embraced by the art world, but increasingly are being considered for other structural uses. Stronger and cooler-looking than concrete, the above fungi-brick structure is held together using chopsticks. View full entry
"[...] In this project, we're using a living organism as a factory. So the living organism of mycellium, or hyphae, which is basically a mushroom root, basically makes our bricks for us. It grows our bricks in about five days with no energy required, almost no carbon emissions, and it's using basically waste— agricultural byproducts, chopped up cornstalks. This mushroom root fuses together this biomass and makes solid bricks which we can kind of tune to be different properties." — The Creators Project
Here are a few more photos of Hy-Fi, the locally-sourced, virtually waste-less biostructure by The Living, which just debuted in the courtyard of MoMA PS1. Photos by Andrew Nunes. In the video below, David Benjamin talks with The Creators Project about building the structure from agricultural... View full entry
In the past few weeks, the Buckminster Fuller Institute has been introducing numerous finalist entries for the sixth annual Buckminster Fuller Challenge [...].
Today now, the BFI announced the overall challenge winner: Ecovative, a Green Island, NY-based materials science company that has developed a new class of home-compostable bio-plastics based on living organisms, mushroom mycelia — a high-performing, environmentally responsible alternative to traditional plastic materials.
— bustler.net
The 'mushroom material' inventors, Eben Bayer, Gavin McIntyre, and the Ecovative Team, will be awarded the $100,000 cash prize at a ceremony at Cooper Union in New York City on November 18, 2013. Previously: Announcing the 2013 Buckminster Fuller Challenge Finalists View full entry
