Ecovative's Mushroom Tiny House

normally we go to great lengths to keep mold and fungi out of the walls of our homes here at innovative we've done what many would consider to be crazy we've grown a home with walls that are literally grown from a fungus this really works not only is it affordable it's far more sustainable and it's actually safer than conventional building materials at incubate if we grow bio composites like mushroom packaging a cost competitive performance competitive alternative to expanded foam plastics like expanded polystyrene or styrofoam we launched this product in 2009 and most recently we partnered with sealed air corporation to bring this material to customers around the world it all starts with agricultural waste derived from crop production these products also known as substrates can be anything from corn husks to rice hulls to chopped up plant stalks substrates are purchased from local farmers and brought to eco vated facilities for processing once delivered these substrates are stored cleaned and inoculated with a mushroom component called miss psyllium the mixture of substrate and mycelium forms a matrix which is the basis for all of you give ativ self-assembling materials we refer to this form matrix as a mushroom material in a few days the newly grown mushroom material is broken up by a trommel this broken up material is packed and sealed into thermal foam molds the material is allowed to grow self-assembling into a solid mass which takes on the shape of its cavity after we finished growing our parts which takes just a couple of days these parts are popped out of their molds and put into a heated environment to stop growth and dry the parts finally they are boxed for shipment around the world we've proven this technology with protective packaging and today you cavanna misra placing thousands and thousands of plastic foam parts every month with this cradle-to-cradle of gold certified packaging technology and now we've proven this technology has grown in place insulation with the mushroom tiny house the principles are the same but instead of molding mushroom materials into packaging parts we've packed these materials into the walls of this home sandwiched between these pine tongue and groove boards the mushroom materials grow bonding themselves together into insulation that won't settle and is adhered to the pion tongue and groove creating a strong sandwich construction that doesn't require any studs and has no thermal bridges the resulting material is incredibly strong it's safe it has no VOCs and it has a class-a fire rating this mushroom tiny house can be built by a couple of people in less than two months of nights and weekend time and provides truly affordable and sustainable housing it served as a testbed to prove out our most radical ideas we are also developing other mushroom building materials including structural insulating panels insulated sheathing and acoustic ceiling tiles eco votive is growing affordable sustainable and safe mushroom insulation for a foam free future to learn more and to get involved check out mushroom tiny-house calm

Channel: Ecovative Design

Views: 114,861

Keywords:

Id: BUxael8qV78

Length: 3min 0sec (180 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 02 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/OblivionGenesis]

"Mushroom Materials" aka Shroom-sulation

[u/godwings101]

Seems like putting fungus in your house from the get go is counter intuitive. And forget the "eco friendly" aspect for a second and lets think about how it works in practical situations. Is it fire resistant? Does it keep out heat and cold? How does it stand up to wear and tear over time?