Mycelium, the root system of fungi, is a natural alternative to plastic popping up in architecture and furniture design.
Canadian building tech expert Joseph Dahmen* has been playing around with mycelium-based construction materials for many years.
Joseph Dahmen Photo: Supplied
Dahmen and his wife, artist Amber Frid-Jimenez, once built a living wall of individual mycelium bricks at the Museum of Vancouver.
The bricks eventually fused together to became one large mycelium block - a discovery that's "quite exciting, architecturally," Dahmen tells Kim Hill.
"Literally it's living material, so we never stabilised the blocks through heat."
Because Dahmen and Frid-Jimenez couldn't control the temperature around the mushroom wall, it eventually began to bear fruit.
"We were quite intrigued, it wasn't intentional, but it points to some of the challenges and opportunities of working with living materials.
"So we delivered the wall to the museum and it fruited all over the place so we hired a caterer and actually served the mushroom fruit at the opening."
The living nature of mycelium may make it seem impractical as a plastic alternative or building material, but it also adds value, Dahmen notes.
"It might actually be preferable in things like packaging because you can imagine when you're finished with the packaging, it can begin to digest itself.
"Most buildings spend far longer in the landfill as broken-up materials than they ever do in the form of a building.
"If you can, imagine a radical future in which when we're finished with a building, the materials begin to digest themselves and break down and actually provide the nutrients for ecosystems."
The mycelium-based products currently used in construction take a "centralised, one size fits all approach" to mycelium's potential as a building material.
By contrast, Dahmen and his team are creating a biodegradable fast-composting toilet for use in refugee camps.
After 30-to-40 uses, the toilet's tank, along with all the waste in it, is capped with mycelium and put outside to be buried.
"In it are thermophilic, which is heat-loving, microbes that break down the waste very quickly and efficiently to eliminate the pathogens and convert it to compost in three to four weeks.
"Eventually it breaks down to a pile of soil that you can spread in a garden."
His team is currently developing a prototype for use, with tests due to begin soon. From there, he expects they will be distributing it within a couple of years.
*Joseph Dahmen is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia School of Architecture
