Mushroom-based buildings could help solve Kenya’s housing crisis

Kenya is facing an inadequate supply of new housing units, partially the consequence of the country’s population growth, and each year, only around 50,000 units spring up against a demand of about 250,000, but the solution may lie in mushroom-sourced construction materials.

Indeed, a Nairobi-based research and manufacturing company MycoTile is using upcycled agricultural waste to create building solutions, including mycelium, the vegetative element of fungus, according to a report by Nature published on March 10.

In the words of Mtamu Kililo, MycoTile’s CEO, his company “works to produce affordable building materials out of agricultural waste bonded with oyster-mushroom mycelium, a network of tiny filaments that forms a root-like structure for the mushroom.”

Why mushroom-based construction material?

There are many reasons why mycelium is an excellent choice for building materials and a superior alternative to traditional non-biodegradable packaging. They include its high insulation value, total compostability, long-term sustainability, low weight, and the presence of chitin. 

The latter has noteworthy mechanical properties as a biopolymer, showing significant structural robustness and flexibility for various functionalities. In nature, chitin composes some of its toughest structures, such as insect cuticles, crustacean shells, and mollusk nacre, making it a natural fire retardant, and therefore safer than the alternatives.

Specifically, mycelium, being an interconnected network of microscopic cells, can trap air and water vapor and act as an excellent insulator, helping regulate the temperature inside the building, lowering the demand for heating and cooling, and making mycelium-based constructions more energy efficient.

For all of these reasons, already a few projects have deployed them, including in student accommodation, where they greatly reduced the sound traveling from one room to the next and helped regulate the temperature inside. Plus, the material is affordable and can be composted at the end of the building’s life.

That said, Kililo noted that:

“The construction industry is conservative and is slow to accept new materials. It’s also hard to convince the general public, who are used to concrete and brick, that we are building reliably with mushrooms.”

However, the use of mycelium in building has the potential to revolutionize the sector and more architects and builders might start adopting it.

Speaking of mushrooms, psilocybin, the psychedelic found in drugs like magic mushrooms, may help restore normal brain function in mild recurrent head trauma, which poses an increased risk of dementia and other medical problems.