In the United Kingdom, university students are using mushrooms as a new building material. They mixed mycelium, also known as oyster mushroom spawn, with cardboard and then molded them into tubular cotton bandages that look like giant sausages that are then shaped and grown over four weeks in a greenhouse. The structures can be used for events like festivals that need short-term buildings and after their use is over, they biodegrade making it a zero-waste building material.
In case you get hungry while inside the structure, you can pluck the delicious mushrooms that grow from it, making it edible architecture. Researchers’ next step is to improve the strength of the structures, reshape them into different designs and build on smaller scales.