Neri Oxman facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Neri Oxman
נרי אוקסמן
Oxman in 2017
Born	(1976-02-06) February 6, 1976 (age 49) Haifa, Israel
Nationality	Israeli, American
Education	Hebrew University of Jerusalem Israel Institute of Technology (BA) Architectural Association (MA) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD)
Occupation	Designer and academic
Spouse(s)	Osvaldo Golijov ​ ​ (m. 2011; div. 2015)​ Bill Ackman ​ (m. 2019)​
Children	1
Parent(s)	Rivka Oxman (mother)
Awards	National Design Award (2018) Vilcek Prize (2014)
Scientific career
Fields	Architectural design
Thesis	Material-based design computation (2010)
Doctoral advisor	William J. Mitchell
Military career
Allegiance	Israel
Service/branch	Israeli Air Force
Rank	First lieutenant

Neri Oxman (Hebrew: נרי אוקסמן; born February 6, 1976) is an Israeli-American designer and former professor. She is known for her amazing art and designs. Her work combines design, biology, computers, and materials engineering. She created the term "material ecology" to describe her unique approach.

Oxman was a professor at the MIT Media Lab. There, she started and led a research group called Mediated Matter. Her art has been shown in famous museums. These include the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Many of her pieces are now part of their permanent collections.

Many of Oxman's projects use new ways to create things with 3D printing. She often includes ideas from nature and biology. For example, she worked on systems to build structures with silkworms, bees, and ants. She also created a way to build things from chitosan, a natural material, like her Aguahoja project. She even helped create the first 3D printer for clear glass. Other projects include printed clothes, things you can wear, and furniture.

Early Life and Education

Neri Oxman was born in Haifa, Israel, in 1976. Her parents, Robert and Rivka Oxman, were both architecture professors. Her sister, Keren, is an artist. Neri grew up in Israel, spending time in her parents' design studio. She also visited her grandmother's house, which she said made her feel curious about the world.

After finishing high school in 1993, she served two years in the Israeli Air Force. She reached the rank of first lieutenant. After her military service, she studied medicine for two years. Then, she decided to switch to architecture. She started her architecture studies in Israel and finished her degree in London in 2004.

In 2005, Oxman began her advanced studies (Ph.D.) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She focused on architectural design and using computers. Her main project was about designing with materials in mind. She completed her doctoral program in 2010.

Career Highlights

Oxman with Chuck Hoberman of Harvard Graduate School of Design

In 2006, Neri Oxman started a special research project at MIT. She called it material ecology. This project explored new ways to design things using different materials. In 2010, she became a professor at MIT. She was given her own lab, the Mediated Matter group, at the MIT Media Lab. She became a permanent professor at MIT in 2017.

Her research explores how to design things using computer models. She also looks at how to build those designs using different materials. For example, she worked on creating a "skin" for buildings. This skin could change color in the sun to create shade. She also worked on strong materials that can break down naturally. She has published many projects that combine biology, medicine, wearable items, and tools for making things.

Her work has inspired new ways of thinking about materials and structures. In 2016, she helped start the Journal of Design Science. This journal focuses on ideas that don't fit into just one area of study. She believes that science, engineering, design, and art are all connected. Each one helps the others.

Oxman's early projects were often surfaces, furniture, or things that could be worn. Since 2013, many of her projects have been temporary art displays. These often show the process of how they were made. Some use machines, like for Ocean Pavilion and Glass I. Others use biological processes, like for Silk Pavilion and Synthetic Apiary.

Oxman's work is part of the permanent collections of many museums. These include the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). In 2020, MoMA held the first exhibition focused only on her work.

Mediated Matter Group

Oxman's Mediated Matter research group uses computer design, digital making, 3D printing, and materials science. They also use synthetic biology to create structures of all sizes. The group created its own ways of printing and worked with many 3D production systems. Their projects ranged from large furniture to artwork and clothes. They also worked on natural materials and even tiny parts like artificial valves. They often took pictures of natural samples. Then, they used computer programs to create similar structures. Finally, they developed new ways to build them.

Their projects included wearable clothes and tools. They also designed things that use solar power and break down naturally. They created new art techniques and built surfaces, walls, and strong parts for buildings.

Building with Nature

The Silk Pavilion from 2013 was famous for how it was made. It was woven by 6,500 free-roaming silkworms on a nylon frame. The team studied how silkworms would react to different surfaces. They learned what would make the worms spin silk onto a structure instead of just making cocoons. A robotic arm loosely wove a large dome frame from thin nylon threads. Silkworms were then released onto the frame in groups. They added layers of silk before being carefully removed. This project combined engineering, silk farming, and studying sunlight. People could stand inside the finished pavilion. A new version, Silk Pavilion II, was made in 2020 for an exhibition at MoMA.

The Synthetic Apiary was a room-sized project from 2015. It studied how bees build hives indoors. This project worked with a beekeeping company. It explored how natural bee habitats could be part of buildings.

Wearable Designs

In 2012, Oxman printed a set of body-sized wearables called Imaginary Beings. These were inspired by mythical creatures. She also worked with fashion designer Iris van Herpen on Anthozoa. This cape and skirt looked like sea creatures.

In 2015, she designed the Wanderers collection. It was inspired by space travel. This collection included the Living Mushtari chestpiece. It was a model of a digestive system. It held tiny living things that could help someone survive in harsh places.

In 2016, she made Rottlace, a 3D-printed mask for the singer Björk. It was based on a 3D scan of Björk's face. Björk wore it in the world's first 360° virtual reality live show. Oxman also developed Lazarus, a project to capture a person's last breath. She also started Vespers, a collection of 15 death masks. These masks were divided into past, present, and future. They contained minerals and bacteria.

Environments and Furniture

In 2014, she worked on Gemini. This was a chaise longue (a long chair) with a wooden frame and 3D-printed fabric. It was designed to be both strong and good for sound. It aimed to create a calm, womb-like space. The SFMOMA bought this piece. This work also led to a larger idea for a Gemini Cinema.

New 3D Printing Tools

The Mediated Matter group also created new tools for printing. These included a printer that could print whole parts of rooms. They also made a glass printer and a fast-drying printer. This fast printer could make objects that stood up on their own without needing extra support.

In 2014, they created G3DP. This was the first 3D printer that could make clear glass. Before this, 3D printers could only make glass that was brittle and not see-through. G3DP worked like traditional glass blowing. It had a special oven for heating and cooling the glass. This process allowed them to control the color, clearness, thickness, and texture of the glass. Two versions of the printer, G3DP and G3DP2, made a collection of glass objects. These objects have been shown as Glass I and Glass II.

A 10-foot tall glass sculpture called YET was printed with this tool. It was shown at the 2017 Milan Design Week.

Also in 2014, the group developed Aguahoja. This project used a water-based printing platform. It built structures from chitosan, a natural fiber similar to chitin. They could make strong pillars or long leaves by changing how the fibers were placed. The resulting structures could be hard or flexible. This was shown in two art displays, Aguahoja I and II. They featured a central 15-foot tall sculpture that looked like "enormous, folded cicada wings".

In 2016, the group developed a large robotic printing system. It was called the Digital Construction Platform (DCP). It used a robot arm to print foam molds. DCP v2 could print a section of a dome 15 meters wide and 4 meters high.

Other Projects

Starting in 2018, the Mediated Matter lab worked on the Totems project. This project explored how to get melanin (a natural pigment) from different living things. Then, they put it into 3D-printed structures. This led to an idea for buildings with outer walls that could react to sunlight.

From 2017 to 2020, a new Silk Pavilion was created. It was called Silk Pavilion II. This project looked for new ways to get silk from silkworms without harming them.

In 2020, the lab made a new Aguahoja display, Aguahoja III. It was kept in a special gallery with controlled climate. This was to see how the chitosan material would change over time compared to the original. The lab stopped its active work in 2021.

Recent Work

Since 2020, Oxman's own studio, Oxman Architects, has continued to explore similar ideas. They made a documentary about their work called Nature × Humanity. This became the name of a 2022 exhibition of their work at SFMOMA.

In 2020, she created the final version of Silk Pavilion II. It was woven in Italy with a silkworm farm. The structure was built on a shape that could dissolve.

In 2021, her team revisited the Synthetic Apiary. They built a new environment for bees to create hives. This new environment had special scents (pheromones) embedded in it. The resulting hives were scanned to create digital models. This helped them understand how bees build. They also designed an experiment to test how bees react to low gravity. They built a special container for this experiment to fly on a Blue Origin rocket.

Design Philosophy

Oxman at Pop!Tech 2009

Neri Oxman developed her idea of "material ecology" in 2006. This was when she was a student at MIT. It combines 3D printing with biology, engineering, materials science, and computer science. The goal is to create objects and structures that seem to "grow" rather than being put together from many parts. She believes in creating "whole products" that have many uses. This means living in harmony with nature, instead of making things from separate pieces.

She described her work as changing from "using nature as a resource" to "editing it like a biological one." This means using natural shapes and textures as inspiration. It also means using living things themselves to create, like the glowing bacteria in Mushtari and the silkworms in the Silk Pavilion.

Paola Antonelli, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, said Oxman's work helps us "understand nature's many design lessons." Then, we can use computers to apply these lessons to all kinds of projects.

Oxman's ideas about design and the environment are used by people who create quick prototypes in other fields. She gave a popular TED talk in 2015 about material ecology. In 2019, the Netflix show Abstract: The Art of Design featured her work in its second season.

Personal Life

Neri Oxman was previously married to the Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov. In 2019, she married Bill Ackman, an investor. They have one daughter together. They also work together as trustees for the Pershing Square Foundation.

Works

Early Works

Much of Oxman's early work focused on 3D printing for human uses. One project was Carpal Skin. It used a person's pain pattern from carpal tunnel syndrome to create a custom support to ease their discomfort. She also created Monocoque (2007). This showed how a printed structure could support itself using its outer skin, not inner supports. This needed a printer that could print different materials with different strengths at the same time. She called this 'variable property rapid prototyping'.

Selected Works

Gallery

Art, surfaces, and furniture

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  Cartesian Wax surface

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  Raycounting, multiply lit

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  Pneuma 2

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  G3DP printed glasswork

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  G3DP bowl

Processes and installations

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  Morphologies used for Wanderers

Selected Exhibits

Awards and Recognition

Oxman is a senior fellow in the Design Futures Council. She is also a Royal Designer for Industry in the UK. She has won several awards, including the Vilcek Prize in Design and a National Design Award. She also received a SFMOMA Contemporary Vision Award.

In 2016, she was a culture leader at the World Economic Forum. She also received MIT's Collier Medal. In 2018, she received a Design Innovation Medal from the London Design Festival. The next year, her Aguahoja project was named "Sustainable Design of the Year" and "Design Project of the Year" by Dezeen magazine.

See Also

In Spanish: Neri Oxman para niños