We’re in an affordable housing crisis, and we’ve been stuck in the same loop of underfunded toxic building projects for years. It’s high time we think outside the box. The answer might be where we least expect it…in the network of fungal threads that produce mushrooms.

Join us for a live taping of Healthy Materials Lab’s podcast, Trace Material with guest Chris Mauer, principal architect at redhouse studio and member of the BioHAB team. Come behind the scenes as hosts Ava Robinson and Burgess Brown chat with Chris about mycelium’s potential to reshape the way we build affordable housing.

In the upcoming season of Trace Material, we’ll be diving into the world of fungi to explore the myriad uses of this mysterious kingdom of organisms. BioHAB, a project based in Namibia, combines many of those uses. We’ll chat with Chris about how he and the rest of the BioHAB team are harvesting an invasive bush in Namibia and using it as biomass to grow gourmet mushrooms for food and building materials for affordable housing. We’ll take a quick detour to Mars where Chris will share how he’s partnering with NASA to “grow” martian housing.

This event is part of Mycelium Millennium Talks, which explores the potential of mycelium to shape the future of healthy materials. Mycelium is the network of fungal threads that can be harnessed to do everything from cleaning up toxic waste sites to constructing housing to forming patterns on textiles. In these events, we’ll speak to innovators, design researchers, and manufacturers who are manifesting mycelium’s potential across the fields of design, textiles, and architecture.

You can watch the recording of the event below.

Christopher Maurer is an architect, innovator, and founder of redhouse studio in Cleveland, Ohio. He has worked in North America, Europe, and Africa and has led projects for such clients as the Clinton Global initiative, The UN Millennium Project, Madonna’s Raising Malawi, and NASA’s NIAC program. redhouse is working with MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms and the Standard Bank Group to develop building materials and processes in Namibia from biomass waste that can create food, save water, and sequester carbon. In Cleveland redhouse is using living organisms to remediate and recycle waste construction and demolition materials with their biocycler technology. With renowned astrobiologist, Dr Lynn Rothschild at NASA Ames Research Center, redhouse is designing self-growing habitats for off-planet missions. Chris has also written open-source building technology manuals on earth construction and bioterial production for the AIA, Center for Architecture Foundation, and for Elsevier.