Dornob | Design Ideas Daily

Mushroom House: The Tiny Home Stuffed With Mushrooms

Posted: 24 Jul 2013 10:00 AM PDT

mushroom tiny house

Ordinarily, finding mushrooms in your home would mean that you’ve got a moisture problem somewhere. But the Mushroom Tiny House built by Ecovative includes fungus as an essential part of its structure.

mushroom insulation

The exterior of the home is wood, but between the exterior and the wooden interior walls sits an insulation layer of mycelium (the “roots” of mushrooms). The material is affordable, fire resistant and contains virtually no VOCs. It also offers amazing thermal protection, saving the home dwellers money on heating and cooling.

organic insulation

This particular home was built to demonstrate that the construction industry has green, inexpensive alternatives to the typical materials they have been using for decades. It’s truly tiny – just 12′ X 7′ – but it wasn’t intended to be an actual home. It was constructed for the 2013 Tiny House Fair in Vermont.

fungus insulation

Ecovative is working on other mushroom-based construction alternatives. The Mushroom Tiny House features acoustic ceiling tiles made of a mushroom material and the group believes that they will soon be able to offer a DIY kit for making your very own Mushroom Tiny House.

Keep Going - Check Out These Great Related Dornob Articles:

The DIY Tiny House Built and Occupied by a Family of 4

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Literalist Wall Lamps: Familiar Shapes via Light-Up Outlines

Posted: 23 Jul 2013 04:00 PM PDT

This is a design that could make or break a room’s decor depending on its deployment, treading the filament-like fine line between kitsch and clever.

The light-up portion of the lamp, like neon lettering, is an element that also traces a two-dimensional form. Aside from aesthetic boundaries, it also straddles the border between store-bought and do-it-yourself – you assemble it yourself, and can switch out colors as desired.

The Filomena lamp from nadlab - short for National Art and Design Laboratory – is a collaborative project between a craftsman decorator and industrial designer who started with conventional materials and ended up with somewhat more offbeat results.

The construction process, per Design-Milk, ”Using a thin sheet of PMMA (polymethacrylate), the CNC-milled panel works as a frame and as a support for the light, acting as a guide for wire placement. Once assembled, the system can be framed on the wall and connected using a 240V wall socket as easy as a table lamp. The light source is a LED bulb white or RGB with remote control (not included).”