In Vitro Meat Habitat

It is exactly as bizarre as it sounds. Here are the crucial bits from the article by Andrew Michler at Inhabitat:

From the boundary-pushing team of archi-visionaries who brought us the fabulous Fab Tree Hab comes a new (and somewhat disgusting) way to grow a structure — using animal flesh! The In Vitro Meat Habitat is a futuristic concept home composed of meat cells grown in a lab. We can’t imagine that these residences are going be replacing suburban tract homes anytime soon, but it sure is a provocative idea! The creator of the concept, Mitchell Joachim, is a futurist with a twist– he says he is actually developing the concept in a lab.

Before you start crafting your protest signs, Dr. Joachim explains “It is intended to be a ‘victimless shelter’, because no sentient being was harmed in the laboratory growth of the skin.” He envisions a wall in which tissues, skin and bones replace insulation, siding, and studs respectively. For fenestration, or openings of windows and doors, he envisions sphincter muscles that can open and close. Current prototypes are pig skin cells grown around a recycled PET plastic scaffold.

Dr. Joachin admits that the home is not all that pretty, but his work in exploring radical new ways to create futuristic buildings is a provocative reminder that sustainability requires a radical new vision of our cities and homes.

Um. Well. OK.

If this were a sci-fi novel, I'm pretty sure those meat houses would develop sentience and pose a new moral dilemma to humankind. Since this is reality, I'm pretty sure that everyone will be all, "Eww," and probably won't even want to eat it, much less live inside it. But still! Cruelty-free meat habitats! Oh Brave New World!