GREEN MACHINE

A blueprint for the way we’ll live in the future can be found in Melbourne’s Federation Square, writes MICHAEL HARDEN.

- MICHAEL HARDEN

There are so many ideas and innovations packed into the 87 square metres of Joost Bakker’s latest project, it’s surprising it doesn’t topple under the weight of ambition. But the three-storey, two-bedroom, self-sustaining home and urban farm on the banks of the Yarra at Federation Square is securely anchored, not only by a team that includes former Oakridge chefs Jo Barrett and Matt Stone but literally and metaphorically by its insanely productive gardens.

“The whole project is about the food,” says Bakker. “The way we grow, harvest, transport, sell and eat our food is the most destructive human activity on the planet and so I wanted to create the biggest little ecosystem in the world in a domestic space. Our buildings must become part of food production and, because food production starts with the soil, I used that idea to reverse engineer the house.

“In a conventional house, a lot of money and energy goes into the foundations so the house doesn’t blow away. Here the house doesn’t penetrate the ground. It arrived in three sections on the back of one truck and was anchored by 30 tonnes of soil in the garden beds on the upper floors. The stability and the viability of the house is all due to the garden.”