The Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) has announced the winner of the 2013 Buckminster Fuller Challenge and the award goes to…Ecovative, a materials science company that has developed a new class of home-compostable bio-plastics based on living organisms, mushroom mycelia. The ‘mushroom material’ was invented by Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre, who will be awarded the $100,000 cash prize at a ceremony at Cooper Union in New York City on November 18, 2013 at 7:00 pm.

The Institute awards projects that exemplify Bucky Fuller’s famous quote: “To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

The four finalists also included two housing and design projects: Échale a tu Casa, a Social Housing Production program of Ecoblock International that provides sustainable community development through an assisted self-build housing program bringing technical assistance, social organization, training, financing and supervision to give this population at the base of the pyramid an opportunity to build their patrimony; and The Waterbank School, a transformative school design for poor regions in need of water, worldwide. Utilizing geometry, layout and materials, the school provides a sustainable supply of water and food, for the same cost as the conventional 4 classroom linear school building common throughout the developing world, while catalyzing systemic change in the community.

For more info on the 2013 Buckminster Fuller Challenge, visit the website.

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