Johannes Münsch: We don’t give things enough time
Johannes ★ lives in a 400 hundred year old house outside of Innsbruck -> architect and owner of an upcycling studio —> for Johannes there is no end-product, he gives old things new meaning
Johannes is an architect and a founder of an upcycling studio. Talking with him is like talking with a very close friend. I was immediately absorbed by his world of design, love for anything old and desire to give items the value they deserve. Johannes lives just outside of Innsbruck in a 400 hundred year old house. While we were talking, he had to run out of the house to see what was the crane fixing at his neighbor’s house. He is very curious and interested in the process.
Johannes is not an architect in a classical sense. Yes, he studied architecture, worked for several big companies with wealthy clients and spent lots of hours in the office pouring over drawings. But eventually he came to the realization that he wanted to do his own thing.
“After my studies I worked in old cultures house in Innsbruck that was located in a super old building and I believe that influenced me. I saw all these young motivated people working there and it opened my eyes. Now, I have my own studio. I still help people design their homes, transforming them from old to new, but whatever I do always has sustainability in mind,” explains Johannes.
“Whatever I do always has sustainability in mind.”
When I ask him if people think more sustainable in terms of living and design, he says that definitely the people who reach out to him. “Here in Austria people have means to offer sustainability, more expensive materials and new technologies. Unlike my very recent trip to Tunisia, where nobody had a clue what sustainability is simply because it’s very difficult for people to make a living there and achieve income and security,” adds Johannes.
Johannes’ design work goes far beyond expensive materials and new technologies. He upcycles architecture, unwanted items and creates very unique places. Someone’s junk turned into his passion. Upcycling for him is to give things more value than they had before.
“Take this old book, if I put it to the trash its value is just paper, but if I highlight it on a bookshelf or give to to the old book store its value grows. Or, take my old car. If I trash it then the value is only iron and steel, but if I take care of it, clean it, preserve it, use it then eventually its value might go up.”
He believes that almost all products — it does not matter if it’s a book, car or house — will fall apart at some point if you don’t take care of them. But if you wash the windows, sand the floors, paint the walls and show care it will be here for a very long time. Have you ever heard about vintage factor? Value of the product goes lower, lower and lower but then there is a point when the product turns vintage and its price starts rising again. This vintage factor is uncontrollable; therefore, maybe we should give things more time.
“These past 20 years were too fast for me, people made decisions too fast. Good things were thrown out without comparing and thinking twice about them. Yet we still think that we need more and that good design has to be something expensive and new. We will need years to overcome this, but to see a change you have to live it, not to try to change your life,” explains Johannes.
“Good things were thrown out without comparing and thinking twice about them.
Yet we still think that we need more and that good design has to be something expensive and new.”
18 000 plastic cups installation
18 000 plastic cups installation
That’s why he moved out of Innsbruck and chooses to use an old car. There was even a time when he only used pen and paper.
Growing up, Johannes worked on projects with his father — an electrical engineer; spent time in a carpet studio as a student and hung out with his uncle, who liked to fix cars. “The most important part is to be interested, if you are interested you can learn. I was always interested.”
“The most important part is to be interested, if you are interested you can learn. I was always interested.”
Johannes has since upcycled many different places and things — bars, restaurants, festivals and art events, hotels or stores. He’s been featured in a Netflix show Restaurants on the Edge, upcycled a Patagonia store in Innsbruck, designed a treehouse in Germany and even created a fully upcycled factory for Rolf Spectacle Eyewear. He worked with Burton, the snowboard company, to find a solution to their plastic problem.
Up-cycled meeting box, Rolf Spectacles Eyewear
He also hosts workshops. During one of those he was hosting 20 people at his house trying to upcycle old gear. When I ask which project stood out to him? He says with a smile, “Every project is super weird, but at the end they all were the nicest ever. I enjoyed creating a upcycled cultural platform in Idrija, an old Slovenien mining town, for exchange between locals, neighbors and authorities. It was all beautiful people, landscape and atmosphere. We brought back life to this abandoned old mining area”.
But his beginnings with upcycling were not without their challenges. At some point, it resulted in 300m2 mount of trash that was worth nothing. “That was not upcycling, that was trash management! You can easily get bankrupt doing this. I had to pay rent and heating, so this was not an option.” Nowadays, a upcycling project to Johannes is when a client comes and says work with me on this old item — help me bring it back to life.
Innsbruck Nature Film Festival
Ho&Ruck
What product is worthy of upcycling? “Upcycling makes sense with things that were working well while in good condition during their first life. Cheap products that never worked will never a be a good vintage product.”
“Upcycling makes sense with things that were working well while in good condition during their first life.
Cheap products that never worked will never a be a good vintage product.”
“Emotion also plays a big role in upcycling. We have these tendencies to give things value in terms of euros. Thinking purely like this will make us crazy, you can love product just for its beauty and because it means something to you,” adds Johannes.
Everything that Johannes does, feels so natural and effortless yet with such a great impact. He even shares his style of life with people via a platform called workaway. When we were talking his friend Martin, a light upcycler from Berlin, and his family were staying with him for a couple of weeks. “My ultimate goal is to not only upcycle houses and objects, but also society.”
Upcycling will for sure not completely solve our problems with resources. But that change of thinking that things that were already produced do not have to be produced again is an important one to keep ahold of.
“A decade ago, people did not care at all, then it was trendy and now it’s mainstream. It will never be mainstream in its true sense but the idea is more and more known by people.”
All photos ©Upcycling Studio