Shroom with a view: Kenyan firm opens door to sustainable living with fungi

Nairobi: A large mushroom farm near the Kenyan capital of Nairobi is one of a kind: It grows fungi on an industrial scale — not as food for restaurants but as a building material that some Kenyans say could make more people homeowners.

The farm produces mycelium, the root structure of mushrooms that a local company then uses to make building materials it says are more sustainable than regular brick and mortar.

The company, MycoTile, combines the roots with natural fibres and agents to make panels that can be used for everything from roof and wall insulation to interior decor, at a fraction of the cost of building with standard clay bricks. It currently produces about 3,000 sq metres of such materials every month.

Street vendor Jedidah Murugi, whose house was made with fungi-based construction materials, said she believes “there is no huge difference in the quality of the houses made from brick and these boards”. “The only difference,” she said, is in the cost. Her house, she added, “is not cold at night and neither is it hot during the day.”

MycoTile’s work could be a boon for Nairobi, where local leaders cite a housing crisis that has left many homeless or living in informal settlements and dwelling enclaves, prone to fires and sanitary issues. Official figures say there is a housing deficit of at least 2 million units in this metropolis of over 5 million people.

Most Kenyans are renters and those who are homeowners build from the ground up over many years instead of hiring contractors. It is common to find people living in badly finished or incomplete homes to avoid paying rent elsewhere.

“Introducing affordable materials like ours taps into an existing huge market and contributes to providing affordable housing solutions,” said Mtamu Kililo, MycoTile’s founder.

Kililo said his company’s insulation products cost roughly two-thirds of the price of standard materials.

Building a one-bedroom unit in Nairobi using materials such as brick, timber and tin sheets typically costs up to 150,000 Kenyan shillings (about $1,000), for a simple structure, and the figure can double depending on the quality of finishes, according to estimates from builders.

Using mushroom-root panels could shave off a third of the cost of building a house with bricks and mortar. Murugi, the street vendor, spent about 26,880 Kenyan shillings ($208) on the panels for her 15 sq metre (161 square feet) home.

Kenyan authorities have recently started working on a national plan for decarbonising construction and building, with local-led innovation at its centre. As part of the plan, the government allows MycoTile to use facilities at the Kenya Industrial Research and Development Institute in Nairobi, where it has access to

machinery.