MATTER Interview: Neri Oxman

Interview with Neri Oxman

by Andrew H. Dent, PhD

Beast by Neri Oxman

The very nature of matter is being re-engineered as new sciences of design erode our orthodoxies. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the work of Neri Oxman, whose research initiative MATERIALECOLOGY and projects for the MIT Computation Group is transcending genres, fads and boundaries. Hers is a unique blend of architecture, computer science, material engineering and art that has her simultaneously commissioned to create medical devices for Boston’s Museum of Science and pieces for MoMA's 2008 exhibition Design and the Elastic Mind. Here a dynamic and hybridized vision of matter cuts through the inertia of convention.

A former medical student at Hebrew University and the Technion Institute of Technology, Oxman made a final stop at the renowned Architectural Association in London before joining MIT as a presidential research fellow and PhD candidate in Design Computation in 2006. Since arriving, she has undertaken a startlingly large amount of design research driven by her belief that design should be focused on the local environment rather than form driven. By using software to create new composite materials Oxman has been able to replicate the processes of nature, creating materials that are able to adapt to light, load, skin pressure, curvature and other ecological elements. Oxman spoke to MATTER about her vision for the future of design and material construction and the projects she’s developing that might just help us get there a little bit quicker.

Andrew Dent: Why do you feel that your area of expertise and investigation has garnered so much interest from such a wide audience?

Neri Oman: Thank you, this is humbling. Public interest is motivated by zeitgeist, but it also creates it. The ideas that I have promoted – often through small physical case studies- are evocative of an idealistic ambience in which emerging science and technology becomes a hopeful and hum anistic medium for broad cultural transformation. In this context, I think my work is communicative on several levels.

I try not to take on new work unless it potentially contributes to a general understanding of the way in which to create it. That is for me where all the fun is. So the work touches upon issues in design process that are applicable not only to architectural and design practice, but also to emerging areas in material engineering and digital fabrication. When exploring an integrated design approach that seeks to overlap with, and operate across, multiple fields design becomes innovative, richer, and more capable of broad impact. Design, ultimately, is about an ability to work through constraints. In the case of MATERIALECOLOGY these constraints are geared towards recreating the tools and technologies that are inherently related to the type of product at hand. In this way, the very instrumentality of design becomes a frontier of innovation.

Cartesian Wax, 2008
Museum of Modern Art, NY
(molded and CNC milled liquid plastic resin)

For example, with Beast – a prototype for a chaise lounge – the aim was to completely rethink the Modernist project and consider physical behavior, not form, as the first article of production. Beast relates material properties to a general loading profile that would be exerted on the chaise when in use. Stiff and soft polymers are distributed in areas of high and low pressure respectively, and the height of each cushioning bump, as it appears on the surface area of the chaise, corresponds to our body’s pressure map, providing for comfort and support. The design process in this case was completely tailored to a new way of thinking about design and full scale digital fabrication, an industry still in its infancy. Imagine Mary Shelley’s mythical creatures; like them, Beast is an organic-like entity created synthetically by the incorporation of physical parameters into digital generation protocols. It is a Performative Chaise. It exploits and advances technological frontiers to create a form of responsive architecture. Here form follows force not unlike the way Mother Nature has it.

Secondly, I believe the work advocates a new approach to the culture of green; let me explain. So-called sustainable design standards relate to architectural functional components that are somewhat old-fashioned in their construction methods: think bricks, or the hegemony of metal. In the future, composites are going to occupy a much broader portion of the building industry and concrete will be something of the past. Currently, there exists a separation between materials used for structural engineering and materials used for environmental comfort. In my work I attempt to invent ways in which to integrate between the two.

Monocoque is a good example in which material properties are modified according to specific structural and environmental constraints. French for single shell, Monocoque, stands for a construction technique, which supports structural load using the object's external skin. Contradictory to the traditional design of building skins that distinguishes between internal structural frameworks and non-bearing skin elements; this approach promotes heterogeneity and variation of material properties. The project demonstrates the notion of a structural skin using a Voronoi pattern, the density of which corresponds to multi-scalar loading conditions. The distribution of shear-stress lines and surface pressure is embodied in the allocation and relative thickness of the vein-like elements built into the skin. The model was 3-D printed using the Poly-jet matrix technology which allows for the assignment of structural properties to multiple 3-D printed materials. This technology provides for an ability to print parts and assemblies made of multiple materials within a single build, as well as to create composite materials that present preset combinations of mechanical properties. Now imagine printing muscle that way.

Another significant aspect of the work lies in its capacity to translate physical phenomena into art or to express form-generating formulae as building prototypes. My contribution to Paola Antonelli’s Design and the Elastic Mind exhibition at MoMA provided for such an opportunity. A series of four projects entitled Natural Artifice examined the relation between physical material properties and performance criteria such as structural load, heat transfer and insulation. All models were, in essence, expressions of forms front-loaded with data emulating their behavior a-priori to fabrication..

Raycounting for instance, examines the relation between light and geometry. A computational algorithm determines the curvature of the artifact for shading purposes depending on the location of one or multiple light sources relative to the desired location of shading.

Finally, I hope the work opens a new scale between architecture and material science. Designers should not always accept off-the-shelf materials but realize that they have the power to design and manipulate material behavior. This shift points towards a new way to classify materials and a whole newly dynamic notion of the idea of a materials library.

AD: Do you feel that we are currently in a renaissance of material processing with the development of rapid prototyping? To what extent will the evolution of this technology change the way we approach design?

NO: Certainly. We have witnessed the outcomes of the information age affecting so many aspects of our lives. I am positive that such a renaissance of material processing will take us into the next material revolution, post the industrial revolution and post the information age altogether. In the future, materials will be data-encapsulating-energy-managing agents built into the fabric of clothes, products, buildings and cities. No circuit boards needed, only physics.

I am also positive that within a decade we will be witnessing significant transformations not only in design, but also in the construction industry. Buildings will be printed “file-to-fitness” on-site. Granted, the complexity of implementing new technologies in societies structured around old ones are a major problem. But in the long run, transformative technologies will redefine the way we think and make. Novel technologies start out as art forms, using the sciences creatively to reverse engineer the ancient skills of craft forms, still struggling to be born. So we are working against technical difficulties but also cultural barriers.

With regard to Rapid FAB, Recent initiatives in such technologies combined with innovative work into composite materials are now enabling designers and engineers alike to rethink the functions and potential features of products and buildings as affordances directly and selectively promoted through their making. Assemblies of stiff parts tightly held together using joins and bearings slowly wither as we make room for the biological paradigm in which the product becomes a generic medium of response, amplification, growth and repair. The future is that close: printing building tissue as continuous strands of stiff and elastic matter operating seismic dampers will become a matter of hitting the power switch.

Monocoque

AD: There has been much interest in ‘bio-materials’ – those that can be grown or manipulated using biological processes. Are we yet at a stage where this can be done reliably and functionally, or is it still at a development stage? How do you see this area progressing?

NO: Biomaterials make up an interdisciplinary science merging elements of biology, chemistry, material science, tissue engineering and medicine. Many exciting applications of such materials include the production of bone plates, artificial tendons and ligaments, blood vessel prostheses, coronary valves, and joint replacements. Such materials are comprised of living tissue or a device that augments natural functions. As such, these materials must be compatible with the human body; they are predominantly used for medical applications. But the processes by which they are engineered and developed can shed much light on the design process of products and building parts that respond to their natural environment. So in my view, the development of biomaterials in the medical industry is overwhelmingly inspiring to us designers. I believe it is just a matter of time till we implement such methods in the built environment, and we are not the first. Many generations before us have used the stuff of life in the design of artifacts: ancient kayaks have incorporated bone parts to increase stiffness, cellular plant tissues are known to have been used in the design of swords etc. The combination of these age-old crafts with rapid technologies will bring us into a new age of a Rapid Craft.

In my work I seek to shift the discourse of design production from a form-centric approach to an environmental-centric approach where form is motivated, represented and defined by its structural and environmental performance. Unique form, much like nature, is triggered by natural forces and by material behavior. This line of thought promotes a new kind of aesthetics, and indeed a new ethics – a new way of thinking about design.

X, Y, Z, S, S, T (pronounced: EXIST: On the Nature of Coming into Being) attempts to explore the notion of reconstructing material behavior. The piece investigates how environmental conditions can inform material organization. Tissue engineering in construction not only encourages greater attention to material formation, it may facilitate the emergence of a new materialism in architecture and design. An object-oriented finite element application determines the material’s behavior according to parameters such as stress, strain, heat flow, stored energy and deformation due to applied loads and temperature differences. The resulting model is six dimensional and includes 2-D information (X, Y), out of plane deformation (Y), elastic stress (S), strain (S) and temperature flux (T). The tissue is then reconstructed using a CNC mill and metal/steel and wood composites.

AD: Is biomimicry the only way in which we can really achieve true sustainability? Are there areas where you feel that human-developed processes trump those of nature?

NO: Biomimicry is not a method; it is a philosophy, an intellectual disposition, and a mentality with which to perceive the natural world around us. It is the study of age-old design solutions to problems in the natural world as potentially relevant to contemporary design and engineering.

The use of renewable energy sources is a good example of sustainable methods that take more time to infiltrate the market, but are very efficient in the long run. So I think we have a huge responsibility as designers not only to express problems in a meaningful way but to act upon them with creativity.

“Cartesian Wax” – a prototype for an environmentally responsive skin – is an exploration into building envelope design. The work promotes the integration between the structural and environmental elements of the skin. The structural elements provide for an optimized distribution of load, while the environmental elements allow for the infiltration of light and heat to and from within the skin.

Integrated solutions may prove to be more sustainable as they are in the natural and biological world. Less redundant and more custom-fit to their environment, space and structure can now be shaped and manufactured using state-of-the-art fabrication techniques and technologies. It is a well known fact that in nature shape is cheaper than material. And in design, this was never the case. Material is traditionally assigned to a shape by way of post-rationalizing its geometry. That is where we need to question the value of craft, and material attributes as design drivers in addition to their applications post the generation of form.

AD: Materials are clearly a major influence in what you develop – to what extent do you let the material inform the process? Is knowledge of the properties of the material essential in your initial investigation or do you simply work through a type of trial and error in the material choice?

NO: Funny you should ask in those terms. Ironically, the more knowledge I gather, the more I indulge in trial and error as a form of experimentation. A good knowledge base only helps specify the design space sine qua non its constraints. So problem-solving a design problem is as important as designing the set of constraints affecting it.

Material properties are an essential part of my work. In most cases I attempt not only to understand the properties I’m working with but also to recreate them. As a designer, I distinguish between engineering properties (quantitative; those without which the building will not stand up) and architectural properties (qualitative; those that impact spatial and sensual experiences within a space).

AD: Do you have favorite materials or at least favorite attributes in materials? Can you explain?

NO: Any material that offers an integral way to change it fascinates me be it heated plastic, re-engineered plant tissue, augmented muscle or organic skin. Wright when asked about his favorite building, answered, "The next one". I might answer in kind saying, "the next engineered material."