What is the name of your solution?
Shroom Rooms
Provide a one-line summary of your solution.
3d Printed Mycelium Based Sustainable Housing
What specific problem are you solving?
Billions of people worldwide live without housing, and the low income housing in developing countries is almost always made from unsustainable materials, and oftentimes does biodegrade easily back into forests.
What is your solution?
Our solution is 3d printed mycelium based housing. Mycelium walls are fire resistent, have good R value, are pest resistent and biodegradable.
3d printed houses is not a particularly new phenomenon, but with mycelium - it gives several unique advantages not available with traditional building materials. It's biodegradable, it's more affordable (via our in house, lab grown cultures) and standardized blueprints.
And mycelium based housing is ideal especially in situations where temporary housing is needed and will likely be discarded (think refugee camps such as due to the conflicts in Myanmar) where many take up residence in the hills and forests in thailand, and then discard their makeshift homes.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Our solution serves refugees and those displaced from permanent housing. These groups are incredibly marginalized and all but forgotten, especially in a developing country like Thailand, which can barely house it's own domestic population. Our solution provides them with a safe, affordable, secure solution.
How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?
I'm an architect and builder located in northern thailand, who works daily with migrants from Myanmar and understands their pains, frustrations and difficulties in finding housing as a displaced migrant / refugee.
Our solution is simple and cost effective solution. Effectively, we deliver a simple structure and more efficient kitchen (to decarbonize what's typically a wood burning stove with an electric stove that's hooked up to solar power).
These homes are completely off grid, and incredibly scalable. They can house a single family, or can scale up to house an entire community. The best part is they are environmentally friendly and can simply be left to decompose and leave a zero carbon footprint. The solar and kitchen are worth money and easily resold.
Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?
Enable mass production of inexpensive and low-carbon housing, including changes to design, materials, and construction methods.
Where our solution team is headquartered or located:
Chiang Mai, Mueang Chiang Mai District, Chiang Mai, ThailandOur solution's stage of development:
PrototypeHow many people does your solution currently serve?
At prototype phase, seeking funding to deploy
Why are you applying to Solve?
We would appreciate some monetary support in getting the housing out to communities in need.
In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?
Financial (e.g. improving accounting practices, pitching to investors)
Who is the Team Lead for your solution?
Siriprapa Chanjit, Director
What makes your solution innovative?
No one has yet completed a 3d printing mycelium home. We would be the first.
What are your impact goals for the next year and the next five years, and how will you achieve them?
10x our funding/endowment from 1m USD to 10M USD.
Complete buildout of 3rd phase in our cleanroom/molecular biology laboratory (10,000 sq feet) currently in 1,000 sqfoot space.
How are you measuring your progress toward your impact goals?
How many houses we provide for refugees.
How many displaced refugees we can house.
Our net zero emissions, and being carbon neutral.
What is your theory of change?
If we can get 3d printed mycelium housing to be lower cost, better for the environment, easier and quicker to build than alternatives, we can provide affordable housing for displaced migrants and refugees in developing countries.
Describe the core technology that powers your solution.
3d printing
Mycelium housing
Which of the following categories best describes your solution?
A new technology
How do you know that this technology works?
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-...
Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:
Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your solution address?
In which countries do you currently operate?
In which countries will you be operating within the next year?
What type of organization is your solution team?
Nonprofit
How many people work on your solution team?
5
How long have you been working on your solution?
2 years
What is your approach to incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusivity into your work?
We are building a team with a variety of orientations, backgrounds, skills and views. The more inclusive we are, the better our solutions and products will be. Creating a culture of inclusiveness isn't something that we do, it's something that we are.
What is your business model?
We provide governments with an option for affordable housing for displaced populations that scales quickly, is environmentally friendly and extremely cost effective.
Do you primarily provide products or services directly to individuals, to other organizations, or to the government?
Government (B2G)What is your plan for becoming financially sustainable?
We will first provide housing for free to showcase how effective our solution is, and then we will contact governments with displaced migrant populations.
Solution Team
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Our Organization
Forever Nascent