“I’m in all probability the one architect who created a remaining residence,” Bob Hendrikx tells The Verge. Tombs and catacombs apart, Hendrikx is perhaps the one one to make a remaining residence utilizing mushrooms.
Hendrikx is the founder and CEO of Loop Biotech, an organization that makes caskets out of mycelium, the fibrous root construction of mushrooms. This June, the primary burial in North America to make use of one among Loop Biotech’s caskets came about in Maine.
“He at all times mentioned he needed to be buried bare within the woods.”
The mushroom casket provides individuals another choice to go away the residing with a gentler influence, a part of a rising array of what are imagined to be extra sustainable options to conventional burials. Mycelium has additionally had a second in recent times, with different eco-conscious designers making biodegradable packaging, leather-based, and bricks from the fabric.
Hendrikx began out attempting to make a “residing residence” from mycelium, a cloth that can be utilized to make self-healing buildings if the fibers proceed to develop. Whereas he was learning structure at Delft College of Expertise, he says somebody requested him what would occur if their grandma occurred to die in that residence.
Bob Hendrikx and Marsya Ancker at a ceremony for her father in Maine. Photograph courtesy of Loop Biotech
“It will be nice, as a result of there’s going to be a lot positivity for Earth,” he remembers answering after which pondering — “Oh my God, this must be a casket.” The mushroom casket turned his commencement mission, and Hendrikx began Loop Biotech within the Netherlands in 2021.
The casket, which Loop Biotech calls a “Dwelling Cocoon” and sells for round $4,000, is made completely of mycelium and may be grown in seven days. It will possibly then biodegrade utterly in about 45 days, in response to the corporate. The physique inside, nevertheless, takes longer. In a typical casket, it may very well be a long time earlier than a physique absolutely decomposes. However since fungi may help break down useless natural matter, that point shortens to 2 to a few years in a Dwelling Cocoon, Hendrikx says.
“I personally hate the thought of a physique simply mendacity there within the floor,” says Marsya Ancker, whose father, Mark Ancker, was laid to relaxation in a Dwelling Cocoon in Maine in June. “I don’t need to lie within the floor, however I’m completely satisfied to change into a part of the soil and feed the vegetation.” She heard about Loop Biotech in a TED Discuss years in the past and determined to name up the corporate the day after she bought the decision that her dad had handed.
Mark Ancker lays on the Charlie’s Angels pinball machine, “of which he was the campus king” at his college, in response to his daughter, Marsya Ancker. Photograph courtesy of Marsya Ancker
“He would have gotten a kick out of it, out of the truth that he was the primary [to be buried in a Living Cocoon],” Marsya provides. Her household’s not one to overlook a possibility. Marsya described an iconic photograph of her dad sitting on a inexperienced Volkswagen bus on the best way to Woodstock, looking over a site visitors jam with binoculars, quickly after Marsya was born and got here residence from the hospital. “Don’t be ridiculous,” there’s no sense in losing each their tickets, Marsya says her mother advised her dad.
“He at all times mentioned he needed to be buried bare within the woods,” Marsya says. “As a youthful particular person, that horrified me. I’m like, ‘However how will I bear in mind you?’ … This manner he will get to be buried bare within the woods.” And he or she’ll have one thing there to recollect him by; the household planted a memorial backyard with a few of Mark’s favourite perennials on the land the place he was buried. Loop Biotech says its mushroom casket will assist enrich the soil under.
Marsya additionally finds the chemical compounds utilized in embalming “gross.” A need to reduce waste and air pollution is another excuse some individuals are turning away from normal caskets or cremation.
Typical burials within the US use round 4.3 million gallons of embalming fluid, 20 million board ft of hardwood, and 1.6 million tons of strengthened concrete every year, in response to the Inexperienced Burial Council.
The primary Dwelling Cocoon burial within the US (which follows 1000’s extra utilizing Loop Biotech’s mushroom casket in Europe), reveals “there’s pleasure and vitality round inexperienced burial,” says Sam Bar, who’s a part of the board of administrators of the Inexperienced Burial Council.
A “inexperienced” burial doesn’t have to include mushrooms, in fact. The purpose is primarily to encourage decomposition and use pure supplies in a sustainable manner, Bar says. That may also be completed utilizing different supplies that break down extra simply, like woven sea grass or bamboo. “Inexperienced is a spectrum,” Bar says.
Ever the architect, Hendrikx has additionally stored comfy design in thoughts together with his Dwelling Cocoon. Other than the potential environmental advantages, the mushroom casket can also be mushy to the contact and rounded, he factors out to The Verge. “So as a substitute of getting, like, a tough, pointy casket, you now have one thing that you would be able to really hug,” Hendrikx says. “Which is very nice for the grieving course of.”
