Designing Systems and Radical Change
#9 An issue dedicated to alternative views of architecture by Neri Oxman
From the Curator 😎💻
Yo, What's up! Joseph here
This week is going to be short and brief. To be honest, I forgot all of my devices at home when I left for vacation this weekend and didn’t get much done.. 😅 Don’t hate me BUT the article that I did find is a really good one!
If you enjoyed this issue of Life of a Designer, consider buying me a coffee to show your support!👇
Article of the Week 📚
Intimate Links with Neri Oxman
Article written by By Julia Gamolina
Neri Oxman is an American–Israeli designer and professor at the MIT Media Lab, where she leads the Mediated Matter research group. She is known for art and architecture that combine design, biology, computing, and materials engineering.
You probably first saw and heard about Neri Oxman on the second season of the Netflix show, Abstract. The series follows the careers of leading designers and features Neri and her team while while they are finalizing AGUAHOJA, a Biopolymer pavilion.
This article isn’t about her Netflix show but instead it’s about Neri and how she became the artist, designer, engineer, scientist, and architect she is known for today.
Of course, reading the article will probably be better than reading my thoughts on the article but I pulled out quotes that really stood out to me and that’s what I would like to talk about.
Neri and her sibling grew up with two parents practicing architecture. Architecture was all encompassing for her, buildings had lives of their own and took over the form of bed time story characters. It wasn’t until she was a bit older and starting her studies that she realized it was more than just a profession.
Sitting in on those classes, was transformative. I realized that architecture was more than a profession, it was a kind of destiny, a way of being in the world which was all encompassing.
When asked about her research and how it interacts with the built environment.
in Nature there is an intimate link between shape, structure, material and growth. They are all related. When I formed The Mediated Matter Group at MIT, I based it on a few core ideas borrowed from Nature: the first was that shape is cheaper than material in Nature, and the same should hold true for the built environment; the second was that in Nature you don’t find assemblies of homogeneous materials. In nature things are grown, not built; making biological organisms and materials―across all kingdoms of life―highly customized, responsive and adaptive to their environment.
When asked what her biggest challenges have been thus far..
The biggest challenge is jumping, the biggest setback―looking back. As I reflect while looking forward, perhaps the most meaningful of challenges were and are the ones associated with making something new: a new process, a new product, a new kind of technology that will hopefully make a real difference in people’s lives.
There was one quote in this article that really stuck with me.
To engage with the built environment is no longer only about designing buildings and cities. It’s about designing systems that have the ability to impact our lives across every scale.
It’s easy to forget that architecture isn’t just about pretty buildings in a cool city. It becomes more than just materials in a space. What do these systems begin to look like? How do we design them? and how can they impact our lives?
I’ve loved Neri since I first saw her and learned about her work on Netflix but to hear her talk about her design process in life and how everything can become cinematic, is just beautiful. I hope she get’s put on your list of top designers because I know she’s on mine.
That's all for this week, follow me on Twitter & Instagram 📲
I'll be back next week, same time, same place! 💪🏽