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A Mushroom Home: The Future of Zero Waste

While styles of architecture may change every few years, buildings and infrastructure as a whole will always be needed. Your home, local food store, shopping mall, post office, schools, amusement parks, and pretty much every establishment you can think of involves some sort of building. With each of these institutions comes construction waste. Construction waste is made up of unused and unwanted materials such as wood, shingles, nails, bricks, installation, electrical wiring, and sometimes more hazardous materials. Some things found on the construction site have the potential to be recycled, but others end up in landfills where they go to waste and can turn toxic.

A Brunel University student named Aleksi Vesaluoma has found a way to possibly eliminate the waste caused by construction. While physically possible, the idea is not yet feasible for the real world, but shows magnificent growth in the zero-waste concept. Vesaluoma has created a structure made solely of mushroom mycelium. He calls the arrangement of the structure “mushroom sausages”, which consists of the mycelium mixed with cardboard for sturdiness. Under specific environmental conditions, Vesaluoma can mold the sausages into the wanted shape over a few weeks.

The student describes his method as building from the ground up and using what the Earth gives us rather than being wasteful. He claims that you can even eat the growths on the outer shell of the structure. While this eco-friendly form of architecture creates a zero-waste and environment-friendly alternative to the usual construction site, the realistic amount of opportunities for mushroom-sausage buildings are currently slim. Vesaluoma hopes that it can be used in pop-up organic food locations or other shops where people would take interest in the structure.

There are many eco-friendly concepts out there when it comes to being less wasteful with construction materials such as compact living, tree homes, solar powered homes, recycled concrete buildings, and even the creation of gardens on the roofs of buildings with little surrounding green areas. Aleski Vesaluoma’s innovation is like nothing out there currently. Maybe in a few years, we’ll have the option of living in mushroom huts thanks to a very Earth conscious student.

References

Pendrill, Katherine. “100 Examples of Eco-Friendly Architecture.” TrendHunter.com. TREND HUNTER Inc., 29 Oct. 2015. Web. 22 June 2017.

Morby, Alice. “Structure Grown from “mushroom Sausages” Shows Potential for Zero-waste Architecture.” Dezeen. N.p., 22 June 2017. Web. 22 June 2017.

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