H.O.W.

Long description

H.O.W. is a circular material. The name roots in the abbreviation for household organic waste. Only we look at it as the renewable resource that it actually is. The material is organic-grown and biodegradable, right now obtained in a lab through fermentation and mycelium forming. H.O.W. is a hard and light mass and it can be used for multiple purposes, like furniture making for instance. The aim is to develop this material as an energy neutral ‘recipe’, stabilized up to DIY standard. That is to say: a process that is flexible and safe, with a bioconversion failure margin as low as possible, so that people can use it without professional training. The DIY H.O.W. material would be obtained in a machine that imitates a micro-ecosystem, a type of bioreactor.

In this form, H.O.W. works as a social catalyst and it can repurpose organic waste significantly. Its applications are suitable for both public and private sectors. When implemented as a social design program, its entire life cycle increases contact between different segments of society, it awards sustainable behaviour and it could make a local shared economy lucrative.

In recent years there have been multiple attempts and success stories in which fungi and microbes were set to break down waste. Hence, with biotech tools catching up quickly, one may envision a future in which we could grow and make our objects in a similar way to that in which we make bread now.

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