• WHERE I WORK

I create buildings from mushroom components

Mtamu Kililo creates alternative construction materials to confront Kenya’s housing crisis.
By
  1. Miles Lizak

    1. Miles Lizak is researcher and writer based in Barcelona, Spain.

Mtamu Kililo is standing in the storage yard , surrounded by bags of natural fibers, at the MycoTile headquarters in Nairobi.

Mtamu Kililo is the chief executive of MycoTile in Nairobi, Kenya. Credit: Kang-Chun Cheng for Nature

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“This photo was taken at the MycoTile waste-processing space at the Kenya Industrial Research and Development Institute in Nairobi. The sacks are full of sugar-cane bagasse, a fibrous material that is left behind when the juice is extracted. Sugar-cane processing factories produce mountains of bagasse as waste.

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Nature 639, 538 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-00741-9

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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