Joost bakker biography examples
Joost Bakker is committed to a bewildering array of projects that have challenged wastefulness. Described in interviews as a designer, builder and installation artist, prophet and polymath, sustainability campaigner, eco-warrior and creative disruptor, he has also been called a mix of mad scientist and day-dreamer. Bakker identifies himself as an artist. Equally open to talking about failed, stalled or forthcoming projects, Bakker views them as experiments or tests with lessons to learn and ideas that might be improved on. Whether they are commercially successful does not seem to be of much interest. “I’m hopeless at commercialising stuff. It just doesn’t interest me and that’s my biggest problem! People come to me and say they’d like to partner with me on something but I’ve already moved on to the next thing.”
Coming to grips with the toxic city
Poison Planet by Australian science writer Julian Cribb is one of many touchstones for Bakker’s environmental philosophies. “Cribb says there’s 140,000 chemicals in the world and every year we are adding 1000 new ones. They don’t disappear. I’m obsessed with asking why we are doing this,” he says, referring to humans’ constant production of chemicals and by-products.
Bakker is known as the creator of beautiful floral upcycled installations and for zero-waste eateries including several iterations of the Greenhouse, and Silo, which became Brothl. His projects fearlessly investigate how to reduce, reuse and recycle all sorts of waste. But behind this is an understanding that it is not just waste itself that is a problem, but what it does. And this is a question of toxic processes and toxic pollution throughout the lifecycle of products.
His latest thoughts are turning again to some basics – human waste. This will be the topic of his presentation as part of the Toxic City Symposium at Melbourne Design Week. “My talk is about faeces and urine. It’s like a rubbish bin with a lid. You throw it in and it Features correspondent Although he's been told he's 10 years ahead of his time, nothing will stop the Australian zero-waste activist in his mission to inspire us all to live a zero-waste life. Famously described by the New York Times as "the poster boy of zero-waste living", Australian designer, floral artist, eco-warrior and champion of no-waste living Joost Bakker wants to turn our cities and suburbs into sustainable urban farms. {"image":{"pid":""}} 50 Reasons to Love the World - 2021 Why do you love the world? "Because watching the world embrace the idea of zero waste is one of the most exciting prospects on Earth. Growing awareness of the issues we face and the realisation that we must radically change almost everything is driving innovation like no other time in human history." – Joost Bakker, zero-waste activist More Reasons to Love the World As the son of a fourth-generation Dutch tulip farmer, Bakker was perhaps always destined to love nature, something that's reflected in his many careers to date, which include building sculptures from waste, selling worm casings to biodynamic farms and opening a zero-waste soup kitchen where discarded bones from high-end restaurants were used for the broth. His vision of a world without waste and with urban farms and cities that sustain themselves might seem radical, but Bakker is adamant that this new future is on the horizon. His current creative project, Future Food System is a zero-waste, productive house that's open to the public to tour or book in for dinner or lunch. Located right in the centre of Melbourne, it grows all the food its inhabitants – two local chefs – cook, eat and serve, as well as generates its own energy. By showing people solutions, he hopes that he'll be able to convince them that this way of living Read the interview with Australian designer, floral artist, eco-warrior and champion of no-waste living Joost Bakker, who wants to turn our cities and suburbs into sustainable urban farms. Find the right question for each answer. You will find the possible questions (A-H) at the beginning and at the end of the reading. Questions to use in the gaps: A: How are you hoping Future Food System will inspire all of us to live a little better? B: You moved to Australia from the Netherlands when you were nine. How did your childhood shape your interests and inspire this obsession with sustainability? C: Two top chefs, Matt Stone and Jo Barrett, are living in the house and eating and serving only what is grown inside. What part does food and nourishment play in this zero-waste system? D: What's your best advice for travellers who want to live a greener life while on the road? E: Future Food System is located in in the heart of Melbourne and many of your previous restaurants were based here too. Why do you think Australia is the right place for your endeavours? F: You've been described as "one of sustainability's most provocative advocates". Why is it important to be so forthright on the topic, and why is this especially important right now? G: You've long campaigned for sustainable and bio-favourable design and living. What are some of the best examples of sustainable living that you've seen around the world? H: What are some of the most important things we need to be doing to shift both our health and the health of the planet? 1: ... 2: ... 3: ... 4: ... 5: ... 6: ... 7: ... 8: ... Q: ............................................................. (1) My whole life story revolves around waste and zero waste, and I have a real belief that human beings need to adopt what the rest of the planet already uses, which is a zero-waste approach. We're the only species that doesn't do this Viridian (V): This is almost ‘anti-design’. It’s a sustainability rather than ‘style’ response. V: This is sustainability that also happens to be seriously good fun. And it’s a building with almost no environmental footprint. V: Many people see organic architecture as mud brick, and belonging only in the country. Your work proves it can be incredibly functional, and beautiful to occupy anywhere. JB: It’s really important that sustainable architecture becomes mainstream. We don’t really consider materials enough. We need to think longer term. The World Bank estimates almost 60% of our emissions are because of the food we eat. It is the most destructive human activity on earth. I just believe it doesn’t need to be so. We generate enough waste where we live, as in we generate water, we have organic material that can easily become food for plants. V: This is so operable. There’s so much technology p Joost Bakker on why zero-waste living is the future
English learning log
Joost Bakker's Future Food System
Joost Bakker (JB): This is completely designed to be practical. Nothing is designed to be purely beautiful. It’s about modules and as a skeleton able to go on one track and hold soil. So it’s designed in reverse. The soil on the vertical roof is integral to its foundation. Without the soil on the roof, we can’t build this building. It’s totally disconnected from the ground, and reliant on that weight of the soil, to hold the building down.
JB: It’s not hard. It’s like they used to say, “You can’t have a zero waste restaurant.” Well, you can’t have it until you actually do it, and you build it, and you show that it can be done. So it’s really important for me that I feel that we’ve used materials that are easy to come by, and are using systems that are well trialed, and grow great food. We’re appealing to people in the right way, and we’re showing it is possible to be sustainable and eat delicious food at the same time.