Neri Oxman

Neri Oxman (נרי אוקסמן; born February 6, 1976) is an Israeli-American designer and former professor known for art that combines design, biology, computing, and materials engineering.

She coined the phrase "material ecology" to define her work.

Oxman was a Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab, where she founded and led the Mediated Matter research group.

She has had exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Boston's Museum of Science, SFMOMA, and the Centre Pompidou, which have her works in their permanent collections.

Many of Oxman's projects use new platforms and techniques for 3D printing and fabrication, often incorporating nature and biology.

They include co-fabrication systems for building hybrid structures with silkworms, bees, and ants; a water-based fabrication platform that built structures such as Aguahoja out of chitosan; and the first 3D printer for optically transparent glass.

Other projects include printed clothing, wearables, and furniture.

Neri Oxman was born in Haifa, Israel, the daughter of architecture professors Robert and Rivka Oxman.

Her sister Keren is an artist.

Oxman grew up in Israel, spending time in her parents' architecture studio and at her grandmother's house.

After graduating from the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa in 1993, she served for three years in the Israeli Air Force, reaching the rank of first lieutenant.

Following her military service, she attended Hebrew University's Hadassah Medical School for two years before switching to architecture.

She began her architectural studies at Technion Israel Institute of Technology and finished her degree at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, graduating in 2004.

In 2005, Oxman began Ph.D. studies in architectural design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, advised by William J. Mitchell.

Her thesis focused on material-aware design.

In 2006, Oxman began an interdisciplinary research project at MIT called material ecology, to experiment with generative design.

She graduated from the doctoral program in 2010.

She became a professor at MIT in 2010, and given her own lab, the Mediated Matter group at MIT Media Lab.

Since 2013, most projects have included temporary or interactive installations, including the production process and study of its material properties.

These include both mechanical processes, such as for Ocean Pavilion and Glass I, and biological ones, such as for Silk Pavilion and Synthetic Apiary.

Oxman's work has been included in the permanent collections of museums such as New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna, the Smithsonian, and Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and Museum of Science.

The Silk Pavilion, an installation designed in 2013, was noted for its fabrication method as much as its final form.

It was woven by 6,500 free-ranging silkworms on a nylon-frame dome.

Experiments with the silkworms identified how they would respond to different surfaces, and what would encourage them to spin onto an existing structure rather than spinning a cocoon.

The frame of a large polyhedral dome was loosely woven by a robotic arm out of thin nylon threads, and suspended in an open room.

In 2016, she helped launch the open Journal of Design Science, an "antidisciplinary" journal which journal co-founder Joi Ito described as "working in spaces that simply do not fit into any existing academic discipline."

She wrote that science, engineering, design and art are connected, with the output of each serving as input for the others.

Oxman's early projects took the form of surfaces, furniture, or objects that could be worn or put on display.

She was granted tenure at MIT in 2017.

Her research interests involve parametric and contextual design, including engineering techniques to realize those designs in various materials and contexts.

Examples include creating a "skin" for buildings that can tan in the sun to create shade, and structural biodegradable polymers.

She has published collaborations in biology, medicine, wearables, and the design of fabrication tools.

Her work has been mentioned as an inspiration for changing how materials and structures are designed.

In 2020, the MoMA displayed the first exhibition of her work as its own collection.

Oxman's Mediated Matter research group uses computational design, digital fabrication, 3D printing, materials science and synthetic biology for large and small structures.

The group developed its own methods and printing platforms, and worked with a range of 3D production systems.

Projects have ranged in scale from enclosures and large furniture, to artwork and clothes, to biocomposites, artificial valves, and DNA assembly.

Production methods include taking images of a biological or natural sample, developing algorithms to produce similar structures, and developing new manufacturing processes to realize the results.

Projects include wearable clothes and tools,

solar-powered and biodegradable designs, new artistic techniques, and construction of surfaces, walls, coverings and load-bearing elements.