Former MIT professor Neri Oxman launched this week her new eponymous multidisciplinary design studio based in New York. OXMAN works at the intersection of computational design, robotics, material science, green chemistry, biology, and ecological engineering.
The legwork for establishing OXMAN started five years ago during COVID-19, Oxman told journalists this week at her office. In a presentation, followed by a walking tour through the studio, Oxman introduced the new firm and its ethos.
“I’ve spent almost 20 years in academia as faculty at MIT,” Oxman said. “I left MIT in 2020 during a very challenging time for the world, and started this company. The goal for [OXMAN] is to take some of these intellectual findings and research we developed at MIT. Not the actual projects, but the style of thinking and making that has persisted. Many of the team members that are here—designers, scientists, engineers—have been with me since MIT.”
Thinking at OXMAN is grounded in what the CEO and founder calls “material ecology,” a design philosophy Oxman began fleshing out in 2006 at MIT. Material ecology lies at the intersection of culture and nature calling for the unification of the made and the grown across scales and species, Oxman shared.
Designing for Innovation
The studio where OXMAN is headquartered was designed in collaboration with Foster + Partners. It comprises 36,000 square feet and takes up two stories. The sleek architecture, Oxman shared, was inspired in part by Bell Laboratories, among other case studies in innovation.
There, a team of architects, product designers; biomedical, mechanical, and textile engineers; molecular biologists, chemists, and materials scientists; data visualization specialists, computational and parametric designers, instrument makers, and other expert creators create and conduct research.
The projects are expansive. OXMAN does buildings, but also 100 percent biodegradable footwear made of bacteria. According to Oxman, the new shoe line, O Zero, her team works on is “100 percent biocompatible, 100 percent biodegradable, with zero microplastics.”
Oxman continued with emphasis: “It’s not 99 percent biodegradable with a little bit of microplastics and fibers that toxify. These are 100 percent biodegradable shoes.”
“The specific bacteria OXMAN uses for the shoe is called polyhydroxyalkanoates. This material already exists in the world. It’s not new,” Oxman continued. “What is new is the ability to use this material for textiles.”
A series of other projects aside from fashion are underway at OXMAN also. EDEN explores new regenerative potentials in architecture and landscape architecture, specifically asking how buildings can be designed and used in ways that help rewild ecosystems.
Harnessing Ancient Techniques for Modern Times
ALEF, another OXMAN production, is at the intersection of food, fragrances, and flavors. It investigates how native plant life, soil fertility, and bacterial compositions can be driven by reviving ancient ecosystems that nurture the planet, instead of deplete it.
“What you had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner today is based off of monocropping,” Oxman elaborated. “Monocropping has robbed our soils of their nutrients and rendered so much land infertile. Can design help replenish, repair, heal, and restore the wild?”
Looking ahead, OXMAN recently announced a new partnership with Goodman Group.
Goodman Group hired OXMAN to conduct studies that explore “building practices and extend beyond sustainability to promote ecological well-being and the rewilding of ecosystems.”