Brick structure grown from mushrooms.

This Crazy Brick Structure Is Grown From Mushrooms, And Can Keep Itself Cool All Summer.

Made from organic material that can be turned into fertilizer, this installation will show off a radical, zero-waste building technology that could help chill down sweltering city streets.

This summer, a new kind of building will sprout amid New York City’s garden of glass and steel. Using bricks biologically engineered to grow themselves from plant waste and fungal cells, David Benjamin’s Hy-Fi will rise as a giant circular tower that creates a cool micro-climate for pedestrians in searing city heat. Bet you’ve never seen a brownstone do that before.

It’s really inexpensive, almost cheaper than anything,” Benjamin says. “It emits no carbon, it requires almost zero energy, and it doesn’t create any waste--in fact it almost absorbs waste. We think that’s a pretty new and pretty revolutionary way of making building materials.”

To read the whole article: www.fastcoexist.com...

That is sooooo cool! Would be even better if you could just grab a chunk and throw it in the processor to make some mushroom soup too! Edible, regenerating housing....now that would be revolutionary.

I am sure the next step will be to make them with psilocybin mushrooms....

Maybe I can train my mushrooms to grow a raised planter for me. I could probably make lightweight blocks using yeast and some flour and straw. I suppose you would have to worry about the dear eating your building though.

I think it's amazing news! But I have a few questions:

How long can the building last?
Are the bricks strong enough to build high rise buildings?

I really really want to go to New York now to see that building!! Maybe somebody here who lives in New York can go and have a look for the rest?

a reply to: Agartha

Very interesting ... could these mushrooms perhaps be used to grow an earthquake-proof megalithic wall, for example something like this?




I was instantly reminded of some of the old inca sites, although I really don't want to derail your thread. By the way: great post, OP!

Are you guys talking about me again?!

Fungi are amazing, from medicine, to food. Some mushrooms even glow in the dark. We really have only scratched the surface of what these amazing organisms can do.

The largest organic structure on Earth is actually a fungi that stretches miles underground.

a reply to: jeep3r

Thank you, Jeep3r!
This technology is brand new, so who knows what they'll be able to do in 50 years? Pity the article doesn't say how strong the bricks are or how long they last.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

We are always talking about you, oh Mystik Mushroom! lol

Which one is that structure you mentioned???

Here ya go!

Next time you purchase white button mushrooms at the grocery store, just remember, they may be cute and bite-size but they have a relative out west that occupies some 2,384 acres (965 hectares) of soil in Oregon's Blue Mountains. Put another way, this humongous fungus would encompass 1,665 football fields, or nearly four square miles (10 square kilometers) of turf.

The discovery of this giant Armillaria ostoyae in 1998 heralded a new record holder for the title of the world's largest known organism, believed by most to be the 110-foot- (33.5-meter-) long, 200-ton blue whale. Based on its current growth rate, the fungus is estimated to be 2,400 years old but could be as ancient as 8,650 years, which would earn it a place among the oldest living organisms as well

a reply to: Agartha
Scientific American

Pretty awesome that it could be so old...

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Wow! Thank you, never heard of it! This is kind of creepy:

"The fungus primarily grows along tree roots via hyphae, fine filaments that mat together and excrete digestive enzymes. But Armillaria has the unique ability to extend rhizomorphs, flat shoestringlike structures, that bridge gaps between food sources and expand the fungus's sweeping perimeter ever more."

Excretes digestive enzymes??

a reply to: Agartha

Yep, fungi "eat" dead/decaying organic material. In fact, they are invaluable to our ecosystem!

Because fungi can create such a vast mycellial network, practically only the sudden toxification of the ecosystem would destroy all fungal life.

I truly believe that fungal spores can/do survive interstellar space, and may have found their way to Earth on a meteorite or in the tail of a comet.

I tell people, "Want to meet an alien? Go for a walk in the woods and look for mushrooms!"

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Thank you, lots of information about fungi I didn't know. And very interesting theory regarding them being aliens.

a reply to: rickymouse

But that's the thing;
Once you get a deer you can make mushroom deer stew.

Mmmmm Nummy!

This is cool stuff.

As far as mushrooms being from space or other planets;
Why would they be? Come on now.
If that's the case then flowers and everything else has blown in and is spreading all over space. It would never survuive the radiation. Or cosmic rays

a reply to: Agartha

How cool is that!? (pun intended, sorry)

What a revolution this could be.

And the other posts in this thread are interesting and informative, too.

Even yours, Mystik

a reply to: Chamberf=6

I think it could really become a revolution........just waiting for more info to be released.

a reply to: Fylgje

Actually, the coating on some spores is the densest organic substance known, and their dark purple color helps shield them from radiation. Spores could absolutely survive out in interstellar space!

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Heard that too.

They also reckon DNA can survive in space too, especially if it's a scrap of biology encased in micro-spherules of meteorite impact glass.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

I just can't believe that something organic could survive the temperature variations and radiation in space. Not to mention forces unknown. I don't think things are blowing around from planet to planet. I do think it's possible for something to make it inside of an asteroid, or whatever. Is there a study or experiments available that NASA and other countries done in space regarding this?

Will reserve judgement until it exists.

a reply to: Agartha
The main piece of information that would determine it's suitability as a building material is it's flammability rating. I don't think they covered that in the article or video. Also, Is that mushroom brick structure they built, in the video an installation at PS 1 in Queens?