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The Future of Food: Inside Joost Bakker's Revolutionary Greenhouse
Imagine if the house you lived in could grow its own food, produce its own energy, and help to solve some of the world’s biggest environmental issues at the same time.
Future Food System is Joost Bakker’s biggest project yet, one that has been over 25 years in the making.
Located in Melbourne’s Federation Square, the two-bedroom home embraces a zero-waste approach to living, using a structure that’s designed to mimic nature. Over 87 square metres, the home provides shelter, food and energy for its inhabitants, upcycling what we currently regard as ‘waste’.
According to Joost, it’s like living in your own ecosystem, and can be a model for what homes in 2030 and beyond can look like. To prove it, chefs Matt Stone and Jo Barrett will live inside the structure for the next few months, eating only what is grown inside.
Following Matt and Jo’s residency, the house will be moved to Joost’s hometown in Monbulk, where it will become a home for his mum.
Ahead of the project’s launch, we took a tour of the Greenhouse to learn more about its stand-out features.
Nature is the ultimate zero-waste system where everything becomes a food source for another... That's my inspiration for this building.—Joost Bakker
The Entry
Set over three levels and overflowing with plant life, Joost’s fifth iteration of the Greenhouse lives up to its name. On the ground level, the entry is more like an outdoor atrium, filled with lush greenery and a large-scale mushroom wall. It’s also home to a nickel-iron battery wall that provides the structure with electricity, powered through Australian-made solar panels. Best of all, the batteries can be completely recycled at the end of their life.
The Bedrooms
Through the atrium are two bedrooms with an abundance of natural light and floor-to-ceiling windows. Venture outside and you’ll find a nature corridor filled with plants that won’t mature for another five to six years—the best of this space is yet to come.
There are no chemicals, no toxins, no glues. The walls have been painted with natural lime, the wall system is made from compressed organic straw, and the tiles are made from recycled concrete and can be recycled again.It's a system that's completely zero-waste and non-toxic, it uses only natural materials and allows for a lot of microflora and biodiversity. You've got plants growing over your bed, mushrooms growing in your entry, and an aquaponics system with yabbies, freshwater mussels and freshwater plants... It's like you're living in an ecosystem.—Joost Bakker
The Bathroom
Nearby, the bathroom sits adjacent to its own nature corridor, designed to mature as the years go on. A stand-out feature of this room is the timber panelling, sourced from a 130-year-old Cypress tree that was struck by lightning in Ballarat.
The tree was cut down on the 25th of july. It went into a solar kiln where it was dried and as we needed it, we used it. Then we've done some clever little things like collected the sawdust from the kitchen and then turned that into charcoal and embedded it into the straw walls. The idea of that is the walls act like a sponge and collect toxins that are airborne...—Joost Bakker
We spend so much time at home now, our house should be the best place to be and the best place to live, and it shouldn't have airborne toxins. I want people to dream that we can have houses where the microflora in the air is the same as what it would be if you walked through a forest.
Next, the shower is used as an alternative energy source for a nearby mushroom wall. Hot steam from the shower is funnelled through the wall, creating a humid environment for the mushrooms to thrive. In turn, the mushrooms create carbon dioxide, which is fed back out into the atrium for plant life.
Living and Dining
Upstairs, the kitchen uses methane gas which is converted from organic waste using a biodigester. Anything that can be used again (such as bones, shells and off-cuts) is preserved to stock the larder. Surrounding the workspace is a colourful splashback crafted from old skateboards, while the timber cabinetry is sourced from the same tree as the bathroom, alongside Australian sugar gum.
I love the idea of agroforestry and regenerative agriculture, where farmers increase biodiversity on their farms and plant more trees and then end up becoming future suppliers of timber. That's why we've used sugar gum, which is a brilliant tree that can be a windbreak for animals and provide shade during summer. It can also be coppiced, so it only has to be planted once.—Joost Bakker
The Terrace Garden
Overlooking the kitchen is a large window that opens up into the heart of the home—the outdoor garden, a space which caters to over 200 species of plant life. For five months, this garden, a beehive and an aquaponics system will be Matt and Jo’s sole source of food.
We have planned to do a lot of fermenting, pickling and preserving rather than specific recipes. It's a reversal of what cooking has become in a modern age... Instead of thinking of a dish and going to buy the ingredients, we will be guided by what’s growing in the garden and ripe to eat—the way cooking should be, truly seasonal.—Jo Barrett
The whole system quickly falls apart if humans aren't here... When you're here, you're generating nutrients, so you're part of the cycle, just like in nature. You take something out and then other things fail, or other things miss out. This is a human-reliant ecosystem where you're part of it.—Joost Bakker
The Rooftop
Finally, the third level is home to a rooftop garden, solar panels and the aquaponics system. As well as providing fresh fish, mussels and yabbies, the nutrient-dense aquaponics system will be used to water various plants and herbs. In the garden, recycled food drums filled with soil act as a foundation for the structure, while also growing rhubarbs, zucchinis, horseradish, tea and tiger nuts to name a few—the latter being used to produce milk.
There's so much potential for growing food where we live. There's so much potential for waste reduction, increased flavour and freshness of food. We’ve got an incredible opportunity that we haven't even really explored—growing food in our urban areas.—Joost Bakker
Joost Bakker’s Future Food System will be hosting private dining events and public house tours. For more information, head here.
