8 ms·

Buildings made with fungi could live, grow, and then biodegrade

128 points by znpy 6y ago

fishmaster 6y ago
Fungi are one thing I both don't really understand and find extremely fascinating. If anyone has recommendations for comprehensive books or other materials for laymen I'd be grateful.
- Alex3917 6y ago
  Most people would probably recommend Paul Stamets' book Mycelium Running in response to this question. I haven't read it personally (despite owning 20+ mushroom books), but that's probably the closest to what you're looking for. Langdon Cook's book The Mushroom Hunters is also a lot of fun, but it's definitely not comprehensive -- it's just stories about the commercial mushroom harvesting world. If you want to get into mushroom foraging then the best way to learn (in addition to joining your local mycology club) is by getting some of the picture books, e.g. Mushrooming Without Fear and Mushrooming With Confidence. (Field guides aren't good for beginners, even the simplified ones.) If you're in the northeast, Lawrence Millman's book Fantastic Fungi of New England is also great.
- UncleOxidant 6y ago
  I recently read Entangled Life: How Fungi Make our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape our Futures. It was a pretty good read and I learned a lot about fungi: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52668915-entangled-life https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52668915-entangled-life
- maddyboo 6y ago
  There is a beautiful video documentary created by a fungi photographer who has contributed footage to productions like Planet Earth and Our Planet. It really gives you a sense of the vastness and beauty of the fungal world that’s all around us yet invisible to most. Since watching it I’ve made it a point to be more observant when I’m outside and as a result I’ve been spotting interesting mushrooms all over the place. https://youtu.be/KYunPJQWZ1o https://youtu.be/KYunPJQWZ1o
rossdavidh 6y ago
No big thing there, parts of my house are biodegrading already. :(
- imoverclocked 6y ago
  Sounds like you’ve replaced one fungible asset with another.
mcbishop 6y ago
Way cool. I'm wondering if this increases (or decreases) the likelihood of black mold in the building.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- SturgeonsLaw 6y ago
  Probably decreases, assuming everything is working as planned. Mycelium building materials will need to be kept dry in order to prevent them from consuming their media and sprouting mushrooms, and these dry conditions would prevent mold. Additionally, the mold and mycelium would compete for the same nutrients, with the mycelium already far more established. If too much moisture gets in though, it's game over. Perhaps the mycelium bricks/plates can be coated in a sealant.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  As long as the fungi is still alive, it should decrease the chance of getting black mold as it is directly competing with the mold, but it has the advantage of already colonized the substrate the invading black mold wants to colonize. If it's dead then it's just food for whatever wants to eat it.
ArkanExplorer 6y ago
Why not just create buildings designed to last hundreds of years instead? In many European cities (at least those that avoided becoming battlefields) there are apartment buildings hundreds of years old. I live in a 200 year old building built during the Austrian Empire, which has gigabit fiber amongst all of the other modern conveniences. The interiors are typically redecorated every 20 years and the apartments themselves overhauled (ie. replace the floor, update wiring) about every 50 years. The facades and roofs are periodically maintained by the city. The walls between neighbors are about 50cm of solid brick, so I also have complete silence and isolation.
- centimeter 6y ago
  One of the tricks of modernity is to constantly lower the standard of living, claim that standard of living is actually based on something like the number of pixels on your TV, and say "look how much cheaper things are getting, and the standard of living is going up!" Durable buildings, good food, and robust societies are all capital-intensive to construct, and huge amounts of capital have been destroyed and/or transferred away from you by certain post-modern political movements, so it's no longer viable for everyone to live in a good solid building with plenty of space. Instead, you have to live in a cheap pod apartment with thin walls. But don't worry, they'll remind you it's more efficient, greener, etc. You may not have a good kitchen, but you can order a bug burger to be delivered by a subliterate third-world indentured servant. Very modern and eco-friendly!
  - elric 6y ago
    If you have a plan to house 7+ billion people in "durable buildings", feeding them "good food" living in "robust societies", I'd love to hear it.
    - grenoire 6y ago
      No need to be snide about it, OP simply suggests better standards for us all. These will require making fundamental changes to how we live, build, farm, create. There is no master plan in the end, but an ideal of a reliable and sustainable future is a good place to start at.
rsj_hn 6y ago
This would not be good for my rare book collection
samstave 6y ago
"There's been buzz lately about mycelium" -- Well, Paul Stamets has been talking for decades. Did a TED talk, amazing other videos - a fantastic Joe Rogan Podcast etc. Mycelium is AMAZING - and I really hope that we start using it in the myriad ways it is versatile for so many different applications. --- Have you Seen these Paul Stamets vids: Joe rogan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ Ted (6 ways mushrooms can change the world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI5frPV58tY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI5frPV58tY https://fungi.com/ https://fungi.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stamets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stamets
- azeirah 6y ago
  I recently learned that only about 200,000 out of the estimated 2-5 million species of fungi have been identified. It's such a huuggee gap of knowledge! The natural world has so much more weird stuff to offer, hope we will learn a lot from these strange non-plants non-animals
Mayzie 6y ago
This reminds me of a Wraith Hive Ship from Stargate: https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Hive_ship https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Hive_ship
- a_e_k 6y ago
  Or Tel Mithryn from Skyrim: https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Tel_Mithryn https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Tel_Mithryn
bpodgursky 6y ago
Maybe I am being dense, but wood also biodegrades, and is an easier building material to use...
- imoverclocked 6y ago
  The wood doesn’t self-heal or continue to grow once it is cut. Given that they grow some of this material from wood or wood dust, you could potentially recycle your old wood into a new material directly.
  - a1371 6y ago
    Also some wood is being treated in buildings which makes it hard to recycle wood. Specially if this acts as insulation or earth contact, it will be an improvement.
vecplane 6y ago
I assume fungi like this is highly flammable. Is that true?
- shakna 6y ago
  Actually, they're flame retardant [0]. > Mycelium has been found to possess certain flame-retardant properties (e.g. high char residue and release of water vapour) and could be used as an economical, sustainable and fire-safer alternative to synthetic polymers for binding matrices. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-36032-9/ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-36032-9/
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    As an aside, burn morels are gourmet mushrooms that pop up after fires. The mycelium have already colonized the roots of conifer trees, and they produce fruit after the trees catch fire.
betwixthewires 6y ago
Also, wood.
neiman 6y ago
Reminds me of Shriek: An Afterword by Jeff VanderMeer, that literally describes a world where buildings are made of fungi.
nanomonkey 6y ago
It's one thing to produce insulation, or bio-bricks from kiln dried mycelium, but to leave the mushroom mycelium alive seems like a hazard to both the occupants and surrounding building materials. Not only will the mushrooms release spores which can get into peoples lungs, clothing, furniture, etc. and then start consuming those materials, but the mycelium itself will continue to spread into any organic matter that it is in contact with.
- abledon 6y ago
  yeah like, imagine you build a 10 story apartment building, and one small portion of it has live mycelium that accidentally survived, or some weird manufacturing lemon/error... then 5 years later you have to tear down the building due to the mushroom infestation
- a1371 6y ago
  This is already happening in many attics and walls. Also that's why new construction technology deeply focuses on airtightness. The airborne particles you are pointing out is symptom of bad building science, not a cause. As for consumption of adjacent materials, near the end of the article the talk about how it can be triggered.
tehjoker 6y ago
The smurfs.
antman 6y ago
Qualchouse will be providing the fungi drivers and although potentially functional for a few decades, after 2-3 years your buildings existence will stop being supported by the upgraded city. Neighbors will force you to upgrade because even though the pesticides for the new fungi eating microorganism are compatible in principle they are only provided in a container designed for the new buildings' sprinkler systems. The "open-the-container" and the "create-open-pesticide" communities soon discover that competing is a thankless multimillion costs job after producing nothing. Eventually after an upgrade the lucky ones who got unlocked on the outside end up forming militia to take control of the nearby caves. Humanity will have thus realized the early 19th century dream of a pastoral life.
- ifdefdebug 6y ago
  You forgot to mention that time when some of the buildings, due to a strange bug in the fungi specs, started to digest their inhabitants, which was not discovered before about two million people worldwide disappeared without leaving a trace. Qualchouse apologized and provided an upgrade almost immediately.

128 points by znpy 6y ago

Fungi are one thing I both don't really understand and find extremely fascinating. If anyone has recommendations for comprehensive books or other materials for laymen I'd be grateful.

Alex3917 6y ago
Most people would probably recommend Paul Stamets' book Mycelium Running in response to this question. I haven't read it personally (despite owning 20+ mushroom books), but that's probably the closest to what you're looking for. Langdon Cook's book The Mushroom Hunters is also a lot of fun, but it's definitely not comprehensive -- it's just stories about the commercial mushroom harvesting world. If you want to get into mushroom foraging then the best way to learn (in addition to joining your local mycology club) is by getting some of the picture books, e.g. Mushrooming Without Fear and Mushrooming With Confidence. (Field guides aren't good for beginners, even the simplified ones.) If you're in the northeast, Lawrence Millman's book Fantastic Fungi of New England is also great.
UncleOxidant 6y ago
I recently read Entangled Life: How Fungi Make our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape our Futures. It was a pretty good read and I learned a lot about fungi: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52668915-entangled-life https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52668915-entangled-life
maddyboo 6y ago
There is a beautiful video documentary created by a fungi photographer who has contributed footage to productions like Planet Earth and Our Planet. It really gives you a sense of the vastness and beauty of the fungal world that’s all around us yet invisible to most. Since watching it I’ve made it a point to be more observant when I’m outside and as a result I’ve been spotting interesting mushrooms all over the place. https://youtu.be/KYunPJQWZ1o https://youtu.be/KYunPJQWZ1o

rossdavidh 6y ago

No big thing there, parts of my house are biodegrading already. :(

imoverclocked 6y ago
Sounds like you’ve replaced one fungible asset with another.

mcbishop 6y ago

Way cool. I'm wondering if this increases (or decreases) the likelihood of black mold in the building.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
SturgeonsLaw 6y ago
Probably decreases, assuming everything is working as planned. Mycelium building materials will need to be kept dry in order to prevent them from consuming their media and sprouting mushrooms, and these dry conditions would prevent mold. Additionally, the mold and mycelium would compete for the same nutrients, with the mycelium already far more established. If too much moisture gets in though, it's game over. Perhaps the mycelium bricks/plates can be coated in a sealant.
heavyset_go 6y ago
As long as the fungi is still alive, it should decrease the chance of getting black mold as it is directly competing with the mold, but it has the advantage of already colonized the substrate the invading black mold wants to colonize. If it's dead then it's just food for whatever wants to eat it.

ArkanExplorer 6y ago

Why not just create buildings designed to last hundreds of years instead? In many European cities (at least those that avoided becoming battlefields) there are apartment buildings hundreds of years old. I live in a 200 year old building built during the Austrian Empire, which has gigabit fiber amongst all of the other modern conveniences. The interiors are typically redecorated every 20 years and the apartments themselves overhauled (ie. replace the floor, update wiring) about every 50 years. The facades and roofs are periodically maintained by the city. The walls between neighbors are about 50cm of solid brick, so I also have complete silence and isolation.

centimeter 6y ago
One of the tricks of modernity is to constantly lower the standard of living, claim that standard of living is actually based on something like the number of pixels on your TV, and say "look how much cheaper things are getting, and the standard of living is going up!" Durable buildings, good food, and robust societies are all capital-intensive to construct, and huge amounts of capital have been destroyed and/or transferred away from you by certain post-modern political movements, so it's no longer viable for everyone to live in a good solid building with plenty of space. Instead, you have to live in a cheap pod apartment with thin walls. But don't worry, they'll remind you it's more efficient, greener, etc. You may not have a good kitchen, but you can order a bug burger to be delivered by a subliterate third-world indentured servant. Very modern and eco-friendly!
- elric 6y ago
  If you have a plan to house 7+ billion people in "durable buildings", feeding them "good food" living in "robust societies", I'd love to hear it.
  - grenoire 6y ago
    No need to be snide about it, OP simply suggests better standards for us all. These will require making fundamental changes to how we live, build, farm, create. There is no master plan in the end, but an ideal of a reliable and sustainable future is a good place to start at.

rsj_hn 6y ago

This would not be good for my rare book collection

samstave 6y ago

"There's been buzz lately about mycelium" -- Well, Paul Stamets has been talking for decades. Did a TED talk, amazing other videos - a fantastic Joe Rogan Podcast etc. Mycelium is AMAZING - and I really hope that we start using it in the myriad ways it is versatile for so many different applications. --- Have you Seen these Paul Stamets vids: Joe rogan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ Ted (6 ways mushrooms can change the world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI5frPV58tY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI5frPV58tY https://fungi.com/ https://fungi.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stamets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stamets

azeirah 6y ago
I recently learned that only about 200,000 out of the estimated 2-5 million species of fungi have been identified. It's such a huuggee gap of knowledge! The natural world has so much more weird stuff to offer, hope we will learn a lot from these strange non-plants non-animals

Mayzie 6y ago

This reminds me of a Wraith Hive Ship from Stargate: https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Hive_ship https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Hive_ship

a_e_k 6y ago
Or Tel Mithryn from Skyrim: https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Tel_Mithryn https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Tel_Mithryn

bpodgursky 6y ago

Maybe I am being dense, but wood also biodegrades, and is an easier building material to use...

imoverclocked 6y ago
The wood doesn’t self-heal or continue to grow once it is cut. Given that they grow some of this material from wood or wood dust, you could potentially recycle your old wood into a new material directly.
- a1371 6y ago
  Also some wood is being treated in buildings which makes it hard to recycle wood. Specially if this acts as insulation or earth contact, it will be an improvement.

vecplane 6y ago

I assume fungi like this is highly flammable. Is that true?

shakna 6y ago
Actually, they're flame retardant [0]. > Mycelium has been found to possess certain flame-retardant properties (e.g. high char residue and release of water vapour) and could be used as an economical, sustainable and fire-safer alternative to synthetic polymers for binding matrices. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-36032-9/ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-36032-9/
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  As an aside, burn morels are gourmet mushrooms that pop up after fires. The mycelium have already colonized the roots of conifer trees, and they produce fruit after the trees catch fire.

betwixthewires 6y ago

Also, wood.

neiman 6y ago

Reminds me of Shriek: An Afterword by Jeff VanderMeer, that literally describes a world where buildings are made of fungi.

nanomonkey 6y ago

It's one thing to produce insulation, or bio-bricks from kiln dried mycelium, but to leave the mushroom mycelium alive seems like a hazard to both the occupants and surrounding building materials. Not only will the mushrooms release spores which can get into peoples lungs, clothing, furniture, etc. and then start consuming those materials, but the mycelium itself will continue to spread into any organic matter that it is in contact with.

abledon 6y ago
yeah like, imagine you build a 10 story apartment building, and one small portion of it has live mycelium that accidentally survived, or some weird manufacturing lemon/error... then 5 years later you have to tear down the building due to the mushroom infestation
a1371 6y ago
This is already happening in many attics and walls. Also that's why new construction technology deeply focuses on airtightness. The airborne particles you are pointing out is symptom of bad building science, not a cause. As for consumption of adjacent materials, near the end of the article the talk about how it can be triggered.

tehjoker 6y ago

The smurfs.

antman 6y ago

Qualchouse will be providing the fungi drivers and although potentially functional for a few decades, after 2-3 years your buildings existence will stop being supported by the upgraded city. Neighbors will force you to upgrade because even though the pesticides for the new fungi eating microorganism are compatible in principle they are only provided in a container designed for the new buildings' sprinkler systems. The "open-the-container" and the "create-open-pesticide" communities soon discover that competing is a thankless multimillion costs job after producing nothing. Eventually after an upgrade the lucky ones who got unlocked on the outside end up forming militia to take control of the nearby caves. Humanity will have thus realized the early 19th century dream of a pastoral life.

ifdefdebug 6y ago
You forgot to mention that time when some of the buildings, due to a strange bug in the fungi specs, started to digest their inhabitants, which was not discovered before about two million people worldwide disappeared without leaving a trace. Qualchouse apologized and provided an upgrade almost immediately.