Traditionally, there has been but one way to create a home – by building it. While aspects have evolved century to century, prefabrication, new building techniques etc. the context is still the same now as it was at the beginning of civilisation.
However this looks set to change.
During his TED Talk ‘Don’t Build Your Home, Grow It’, urban designer Mitchell Joachim introduced the concept of growing one’s own home, or Terreform Concept. Joachim offers this incredibly simple and effective concept as a complete resolution to all our global warming woes, as homes structured and designed out of trees and organic materials would filter more carbon dioxide than society could create.
His innovation stretches as far as ‘In Vitro Meat Habitats’ – the process of growing homes using laboratory-made animal skin. This ‘victimless shelter’ has been labelled as such, as no ‘sentient being was harmed in the laboratory growth of the skin’. Although extreme, and cited as unattractive by the designer himself, this is a completely no-harm sustainable building technique that has pig skin prototypes already growing.
It is due to this fact that this concept is more reality than science fiction, with the ingenious resolution that Joachim and his team offer to an incredibly traditional industry foundation.
