Weird Wednesday ~ A House of Spores

Phil Ross is an artist whose work has consisted of  real mushroom side-tables and chairs. He would grow the fungi in a mold so that the growth would form a specific shape.

Ross built a small teahouse from Reishi mushroom bricks. He boiled the bricks which made up the teahouse to make a tea for the museum visitors to drink. It was after that process that Ross realized that he may have discovered the building material of the future. The boiled bricks were so strong that they broke Ross's woodworking tools. The fungi bricks could withstand extreme temperatures, bullets and is totally sustainable as well as compost-able.

The bricks are grown in organic matter like sawdust or agricultural waste. The tiny mushroom grows as it consumes the nutrients in the organic matter and soon fine threads of mycelium form a solid block of cells. Placed two living fungal blocks together and they will fuse together in a matter of hours. Cure the material to stop the growth and create an almost indestructible building block.

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