PSFK Talks to Mitchell Joachim, Eco-Entrepreneur

Asked what inspires him, Mitchell Joachim answered with things that started with G: Goethe, Gilliam, Gaudi, Gehry and his coming baby girl. But taking a look at the tall, dreadlocked architect & urban planner’s repertoire, you realize he has many other (alphabetically diverse) sources of inspiration.

With partner Maria Aiolova, Joachim founded Terreform 1, a nonprofit organization for developing “philanthropic architecture.” He sees himself largely as an architect activist: “I give a voice for people and things that can’t necessarily speak for themselves like trees and wildlife,” he told PSFK. “Or the residents of Harlem,” he continued.

With Harlemites being ousted by the campus expansion of Columbia University (where Joachim happens to be an adjunct professor), Terreform are creating an alternative plan – one that gives voice to parties other than the school’s administration and the real estate developers. Featured as one of Wired magazine’s picks on their “2008 Smart List: 15 People the Next President Should Listen To”, Joachim has spearheaded projects at the vanguard of design, where technology, biology, ecology and humanity seamlessly interact.

Among his creative endeavors is the Human Powered Exercise Boat, which we featured last year. There’s also the SOFT car, which Wired called “Facebook on wheels,” connecting people with transport based on locality. And we also like the Tree Fab Hab, which grow homes from native trees “to replace the outdated design solutions for Habitats for Humanity” and was featured at last year’s NYC’s Moma’s Home Delivery exhibit. Then there are his endeavors at the Bioworks Institute, where he and Harvard biologist Oliver Medvedik are creating a “victimless shelter” made out of a leather-like substance formed by grafting paper using 3D printed pig cells. Joachim’s ultimate goal is to find solutions to the ecological problem that has already taken root:  “The environmental revolution is over. It’s dead. It’s accepted that global warming is here and humans did it, ” Joachim told us. Now, as Joachim sees it, it’s a matter of dealing with it. Joachim is answering that question with something more than a sustainable version of old, pathological modalities. He sees our relationship to our environment like that of a complex commitment, like a marriage. As he explained to Wired: “You don’t want your marriage to be sustainable. You want to be evolving, nurturing, learning.”

Mitchell Joachim

[image via Mitchell Joachim]