Neri Oxman Quotes

We must consider the building not as an object but as a collaborative system tightly linked to it's natural environment; an ecological niche.

Unlike blowing or forming glass, resulting in smooth and continuous surfaces; the printing of glass enables high levels of control over shape and optical properties.

Through life and programmed decomposition - shelter becomes organism, and organism becomes shelter.

Imagine that nature is the single most important client in the architectural practice.

What are the ways by which we can reorient architecture to consider materials not as consumables, but as outputs of valuable and increasingly scarce ecological niches.

A biomarker of evolution, melanin is the color of life.

It's about enabling the generation of materials and structures designed to interact, adapt and respond to the natural environment.

For the first time in architectural history, we're approaching the resolution and complexity of the natural world by creating new technologies that will ultimately enable us to design a beam as if it were a branch or an HVAC and waste removal system as if it were a photosynthetic GI tract engineered to convert carbon into biofuel.

A tree becomes a tower, a tower regrows a tree.

Architects are now on the look for materials and substances that can enhance biodiversity and rewild living systems.

Melanin represents unity in the diversity of life on earth.

If we can scale the structure and function relationships found in trees and crustaceans - we will be able to architect buildings, including full scale towers, as living structures able to adapt and respond to their environment.

To speak in nature's language, we must prioritize bio-based structural materials; biopolymers.

We must consider the building not as an object but as a collaborative system tightly linked to it's natural environment.

The discovery of innocence is its loss

When we're able to communicate in nature's language; when we're able to transcend the view that nature is a boundless entity; even transcending the building as the kernel of the architectural project; when we invite scientific inquiry and technological innovation, fusing atoms with bits and bits with genes - only then will the art of building enable new forms of interaction between humans and their environment. Only then will we be able to design, construct and evolve as equals.

To speak in nature's language, we must prioritize bio-based structural materials; biopolymers. Biopolymers are natural polymers produced by the cells of living organisms.

Let's architect a future of synergy between the natural and the built environment.

A skyscraper is not a tree - not yet.

If Enlightenment was the salad, Entanglement is the soup

Optically transparent, structurally sound and chemically inert, glass is a fabulous building material and has been for over four thousand years. Still, the production and use of hundreds of billions of glass facad components every year in the US alone begs the question; What if we can utilize this immense surface area for harvesting solar energy in efficient and effective ways.

From a limited pallet of molecular components including cellulose, chitosan, and pectin; the very same materials found in trees, crustaceans and apple skins - natural systems embody an extensive array of functional materials that outperform human engineered ones through their resilience, sustainability and adaptability.

For centuries architects have been taught to sketch, model and build in three static dimensions - x, y and z. But the natural world offers contexts that are much more dimensionally complex and dynamic.

Let's put heterogeneity over homogeneity. We need to design materials that can restore or rewild biodiversity on the planet. When ecosystems are more diverse, they are better able to perform essential ecosystem services like carbon sequestration.

Optically transparent, structurally sound and chemically inert, glass is a fabulous building material and has been for over four thousand years. Still, the production and use of hundreds of billions of glass facad components every year in the US alone begs the question; What if we can utilize this immense surface area for harvesting solar energy in efficient and effective ways? The 3D Printing of optically transparent glass points toward such a possible future.

Since our divorce from nature with the industrial revolution, the major challenge for architecture remains a challenge of language as we replace units of growth with units of construction.

Through life and programmed decomposition - shelter becomes organism, and organism becomes shelter as it holds the potential to promote the health of natural resource cycles by such means as promoting soil micro-organisms and providing nutrients for growing buildings.

When we're able to communicate in nature's language; when we're able to transcend the view that nature is a boundless entity; even transcending the building as the kernel of the architectural project; when we invite scientific inquiry and technological innovation, fusing atoms with bits and bits with genes - only then will the art of building enable new forms of interaction between humans and their environment.

To speak in nature's language, we must prioritize bio-based structural materials; biopolymers. Biopolymers are natural polymers produced by the cells of living organisms. We're already utilizing them in products, pharma, and even in fashion. But to deploy them on the architectural scale, we need to invest in design and construction technologies that emulate their heirarchical properties by engineering real time chemical formation.

People who ... know what it's like to be in the 'real world' ... they're dreamers that are addicted to reality as opposed to realists that are addicted to dreams, meaning they have that innocence in them.