Project: Food 4.0

Recipient: Julia McCann Program: Queensland University of Technology

Recipient

Julia McCann

Program

Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Landscape Architecture Queensland University of Technology

Project Statement

Global food practices are a long way departed from the bucolic romance of the family farm. Agriculture today is an enormous, industrialized and competitive machine. Humans have already cultivated most of earth’s arable terrain, degraded masses of critical ecosystems and are pushing the upper limits of freshwater consumption. As global populations swell and dietary standards improve, current industrial agricultural practices are no longer a viable option. Food 4.0 combines the globalized efficiency of modern food technology with the vernacular wisdom of Indigenous agriculture to offer an answer to the question, “how will we feed 10 billion people?

An economically struggling rural Queensland town has been selected as the nucleus for a food revolution. Cultural and infrastructural layering has been delicately applied across the region with sensitivity to the town’s existing character. The design interventions aim not only to support a new food industry, but the town itself, mediating its struggles with drought and power. Cultural change is most powerful when it add richness, rather than insulating and “othering” itself, so Food 4.0 has been woven into the physical, cultural and spiritual dimensions of the town.

01 — Synthetic meat and endemic grain production facilities are integrated into the site’s existing industrial area.

02 — The local hotel features a neoteric menu of meals that celebrate local lab-grown meats and traditionally cultivated grains.