Answer to future living

Homes made from mushrooms could one day be the answer to sustainable living.
This is the vision of Ecovative, a US company, which has embarked on a radical experiment to grow a miniature house from fungus.
Founded in 2007 by classmates Gavin McIntyre and Eben Bayer from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Ecovative makes use of a part of the mushroom known as 'mycelium' to grow sustainable products.
Mycelium is the unseen part of a mushroom which consists of millions of tiny fibres.
"Eben made the observation while he was taking a stroll in the woods, that fungal mycelium was growing on the wood chips and holding them together," McIntyre told Foxnews.com.
"The thought process was -- can we use mycelium as growing glue?"
Ecologically, mycelium's function is to break down waste. As it does this it secrets various products including enzymes, lipids, proteins, which act as glue and hold things together.
Ecovative built the tiny home structure from pine wood and poured the fungal mix inside the wall mould, where it was left to grow.
This dried over the next month, in similar way to how concrete cures, leaving it with an airtight seal.
The company claims it saves on material costs, as it doesn't require any studs in the wall, and it gives high thermal performance since it provides one continuous insulated wall assembly.
McIntyre told FoxNews.com that the fungal flat is self-repairing -- if a tree fell on the house, the wall would have to be rebuilt, but the insulation would grow back.
It also has its own 'immune system' which prevents microorganisms from starting colonies within.
McIntyre and his team now hope to scale-up the process to meet growing interest in the home.