Greenhouse St. Georges Terrace hopes to be one of Perth’s most exciting destinations, with the emphasis on tasty, honest food and drink, and some simple ideas for a considerate and non destructive lifestyle.

Like its predecessor, Greenhouse St. Georges Terrace has its frame made from roll formed steel coil. Its cladding and surfaces, raw and unashamed, are made from plywood and recycled plastic. Hundreds of straw-bales in the walls and ceilings provide insulation. Vertical gardens spill greenery from the walls, and an abundant roof-top garden produces fresh ingredients for the kitchen and bar, and provides a serene place to escape the rat race.

With the natural essence and quirky beauty of Joost Bakker’s design at the heart of this building, Perth’s Greenhouse will offer a variety of spaces, fixtures, objects and atmospheres to warm your heart and nourish your soul.

Designers, engineers, builders, scientists, farmers, chefs and others are among those whose knowledge and advice have gone into every aspect of creating the Greenhouse, from the lighting, to the menu, to the fresh baked bread and the worm farm. The Greenhouse aims to harness the growing understanding of the human footprint to offer alternative solutions that tread a fine balance between functionality, sustainability and beauty.

All the features of the Greenhouse are carefully considered first for their practicality, recyclability, life cycle and embodied energy and then for their aesthetics and cost. By putting each decision through this rigorous process, it is hoped that the Greenhouse can provide information and examples to builders, designers, restaurateurs and the public, regarding their daily choices of materials, ingredients, and practices.

Nobody ever convinced anyone of anything by shouting it at them. We hope that we can quietly share some of what we have learned, and let the results speak for themselves.

Productive building…

The Greenhouse St Georges Terrace uses the Productive Building system developed by Joost Bakker. This system includes some of the concepts outlined below.

• Use recycled and/or recyclable materials

• Built to be easily dismantled and recycled

• No use of chemical or harmful treatments on surfaces and in materials

• Minimize ecological footprint through careful consideration of sourced materials, their lifecycle, and the buildings operation and maintenance

• Encourage a new perspective on building and the function of buildings as a productive place that can harvest food, water and energy, and can improve the local environment for people and animals rather than exploiting it

• Building can be made, transported and assembled quickly and efficiently minimizing the transport of materials, keeping costs low, allowing unskilled labour to assemble

• Building design is flexible and adaptable to variety of environments and applications and can use all locally sourced materials.

Productive building method

• Steel frame is made from roll formed 1 mm steel coil, processed through a Framecad roll-forming machine and screwed together on site with galvanized steel screws

• Steel frame firstly clad in plywood for structural integrity and to create a thermal barrier

• Wall and roof cavities filled with straw bales sourced from grain farmers near Dumbleyung in the West Australian wheat belt. The frame is designed to fit these straw bales tightly and lock them in place

• External cladding of corrugated iron covered with a vertical wall garden made from steel mesh and terracotta plant pots

• Internal fit out, installation of windows and doors and creation of rooftop garden

Materials

• Steel

- 100% Recyclable, steel takes only 25% of the energy to recycle into another product once itexists, than it took to initially extract/create it

- Fast and easy to assemble

- Accurate, lightweight and extremely strong

- Allows for minimal material use given its strength

• Straw Bales

- One of the world’s most problematic waste products

- Can be sourced most places in the world from many different types of grain, including wheat, barley, rice.

- Fire safe and long lasting if kept dry

- Very high insulation rating

- (Alternatively walls can be insulated with soil, recycled paper, plastic, etc. where straw is not available).

• Plywood

- Sourced from plantation trees that are generally young and fast growing.

- Can be recycled into chipboard, wafer board, etc.

- Provides great strength to frame when engineering a building where loading is a consideration (if rooftop garden is used).

- Provides thermal barrier between external surface, steel frame/straw, and internal space.

- Can be left untreated internally.

• Corrugated Iron

- Like steel is recyclable

- Nests low volume in transport and is therefore efficient to move

- Long lasting and tough, makes for ideal exterior cladding

• Galvanized Steel Screws

- Can be recycled along with steel frame

- Allows for easy dismantling of building on demolition

- Can be used by unskilled labour to assemble entire building

• Plaspanel- (Bar and Kitchen Surfaces)

- Manufactured from recycled plastic waste in high density polyethylene (HDPE) and can itself be recycled

- Waterproof so does not rot, swell, delaminate, deteriorate or absorb moisture.

- Comes in variety of vibrant colours

- Australian made

• Drip irrigation will water garden. Water used on rooftop garden will filter through soil and sand and collect in the bottom of Schutz bins to be re-used.

• Water from kitchen and bar will be recycled

• Worm farm holding thousands of worms will process organic waste from the bar and kitchen and will also provide rich vermicast for use on the garden

• Products and material used in the operation of the premises will be sourced locally and consideration will be given to their sustainability, practicality and life-cycle

• Straw bales will insulate the building to keep a stable temperature without the need for large cooling or heating systems

• The bar top will be made from recycled plywood from the floor of the Greenhouse by Joost. Rubber floor on rooftop from recycled car tyres. Cushions in seating made from natural latex with kangaroo leather covering. Ice buckets made from old gas cylinders, fencing wire light-shades, reclaimed plastic palettes set in 70% recycled concrete, etc

• The Greenhouse will have a licensed capacity of 120 people

• There will be approximately 7 tonnes of steel in the Greenhouse’s frame and over 40,000 screws holding this frame in place. The frame will support approximately 7 tonnes of weight, including the rooftop garden, which will include herbs, vegetables, fruit trees and plants housed in discarded Schutz DSL Ecobulk liquid bins (to allow for re-use of excess garden water runoff), a native beehive for pollination and producing honey, and a worm farm for recycling organic waste from the kitchen and bar

• The Greenhouse will have around 420 straw bales in its walls and ceiling

• The exterior of the building will be clad in corrugated iron covered by a vertical garden with 4000 terracotta pots filled with strawberry plants

• Furniture (designed by Joost Bakker) will include tables made from the plywood floor of the Greenhouse by Joost (Federation Square, Melbourne 2008-09), chairs made from old road signs, bar stools/tables made from wafer board recycled from old wooden palettes, and light shades made from reclaimed fencing wire.

Born into a dynasty of Dutch flower growers, Joost is a discipline-crossing creative who constantly draws on his ‘horti-culture’ to make artful commentary on the world’s wasteful ways. Working exclusively with the discard of human activity he has fashioned such extraordinary forms that the word ‘rubbish’ has risen from the scrap heap.

Joost took the opportunity to create a temporary installation in Melbourne’s Federation Square in the summer of 08’-09’. The Greenhouse was a huge success and the search began for the perfect place to give it a permanent home.

Paul Aron

Originally from country Victoria, Paul has been working in the hospitality industry for thirteen years. Formally trained in Melbourne at The Grand Hyatt, he also worked at iconic Melbourne laneway restaurant Becco before heading to the U.K. to work in London cocktail venues including The Atlantic Bar & Grill and Chѐ, where he was the U.K. winner of the Bacardi Challenge cocktail competition in 2001.

Back in Melbourne Paul was instrumental in the formative years of Der Raum in Richmond, where he was head bartender and Australian bartender of the year nominee 3 years running and a finalist in 2003.

In 2006, Paul moved to Perth and managed Eminem Modern Turkish Cuisine, one of Perth’s leading restaurants and has more recently been working for a W.A. based wine distribution company selling  Australian and international wines.

Jason Chan

A  fifth-generation restaurant owner, Jason runs the award-winning Batch Espresso cafe on Carlisle Street, Balaclava and is co-owner of Seamstress in Lonsdale St, Melbourne.

In 2005 he was named the Age Barista of the Year and was part of the winning team at the 42 Below Vodka World Cocktail Championships. He has worked in bars for almost twelve years, including Pop in Dunedin and Der Raum in Richmond.

Jason grew up in Dunedin, New Zealand, and is of Cantonese descent. Seamstress was named “Best New Bar” and awarded “Best Beverage Selection” at the 2008 Australian Bar Awards.

Matt Stone

Matt started cooking in Margaret River in 2002 and began an apprenticeship at Leewin Estate in 2003.

After moving to Perth an working in all sections of the kitchen at Star Anise he was appointed Sous Chef at the age of 20.

His love of food and cooking took him to Asia and Europe where he discovered new ingredients and styles of cooking.

In 2009 Matt assisted in the development of Pata Negra before joining the Greenhouse as Head Chef of a young and dynamic team of enthusiasts.

We look forward to seeing what Matt has in store for the Greenhouse summer menu.