Joost bakker biography of barack
A fourth-generation architect, Joost focuses on innovative urban design, mixed-use, institutional, and cultural projects..
Joost Bakker is an interdisciplinary visionary, born in the Netherlands, and raised in Australia.
What Joost did next
Words Larissa Dubecki
Photography Martina Gemmola
THE chances of zero-waste activist Joost Bakker being described as a slash-and burn farmer are precisely ... well, zero. The creator of ecological marvels such as Future Food System, a completely self- sustaining home that occupied Melbourne’s Federation Square for almost two years, has dedicated his life to creating ecosystems rather than destroying them.
So when he grew a crop from which to construct a house, and then set the house ablaze, it was in aid of his latest environmentally driven obsession: proving that hemp can create an extraordinarily resilient building material while also restoring soil.
“I believe hemp is an amazing solution to the need for sustainable building materials because it has so many benefits,” says the Dutch-born flower farmer, florist and eco-activist.
“We even used Australian-grown hemp to make the window frames and door and replaced some of the steel ribs and parapet with hemp