July | 2015 | open source mushroom dome house

Last Friday I just went ahead and did it! I’ve had this idea for about three years, but I mainly focused on all the difficulties in growing my own mushrooms so never did anything about it. But last Friday I just stopped thinking and just tried something instead.

So this is my first experiment in growing my own mycelia. It was really rushed, I should have taken more notes. For example I don’t know how large the piece of mushroom was that I used to inoculate my spawn.

Aim: To try to grow my own mushroom bricks.

Materials:

Phellinus igniarius poly-pore mushroom, fairly old and large about 20 cm diameter.

Pet Straw, dried straw for small pets to use as food for the mushroom.

Vanish Oxi Action fabric stain remover, I thought it contained Hydrogen perodixe that I could use as a disinfectant but I seem to be mistaken.

Hand sanitizer containing alcohol

Stiching awl, it’s like a screw driver but it’s just pointy

plastic bags

Pot of boiling water

A dash of sugar in the water.

Method:

I collected a poly-pore close to where I live. I had to kick it off the tree since it was hard to remove.

I never took a picture of it but here are some pictures I took the other day on some other mushrooms of the same kind.

I boiled some pet straw in water to sterilize it with maybe two tables spoons of sugar added to it. This part was really rushed. I poured out the water and put the straw in a plastic bag. I then put that plastic bag into two other plastic bags containing hand sanitizers and washing powder (the oxy action powder).

I sanitized the awl with alcohol and cut out a piece of the mushroom with it. I put the mushroom together with the straw in the plastic bags and put it in a dark room.

And waited…

Today one week later I opened the bag and took some pictures.

Something is growing!

Hopefully it’s the poly-pore growing. It could be mold but I’m not sure. I’m thinking if it was mold it should be growing in the pet straw as well but it’s only the piece of mushroom that is white and fuzzy.

Anyway I put the mushroom and the straw in a small plastic bowl to act as a mould for the mushroom brick if it continuous to grow.

Ever since I first saw them, I haven’t been able to get them off my mind.

Dome houses!

Easy to build, earthquake proof and have low energy costs to heat or cool.

I’ve been collecting ideas on how to build them. I rarely come up with unique ideas on my own but I tend synthesize ideas from stuff I read on the web. So I thought I just make a blog where I save my findings and ideas to share them with others. Hence this blog.

One of these ideas are mushroom dome houses.

These Japanese dome houses are build out of expanded polystyrene and concrete. According to their video below the houses are really easy to assemble.

Japanese dome houses

I like the easy to assemble part, but I’m a bit turned of by the expanded polystyrene. But what if one could replace the polystyrene with mushroom mycelium?

Artist Phil Ross built a wall of mushroom bricks that has several properties that are similar to expanded polystyrene.