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What Neri Oxman thinks about design

@neri-oxman · 16 positions · 0 changes of mind

Designer, architect and scientist, who led the Mediated Matter group at MIT and founded OXMAN, a company that builds products in collaboration with living organisms.

Neri Oxman did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

6 dated positions, 2023, in their own words. Our reading of what Neri Oxman has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our readingThe things humankind designed are precisely the things that separated us from nature, and the point of design now is to undo that separation.

    Their wordsI think that let's say from the beginning of mankind going back 200,000 years, the products that we have designed have separated us from nature. And it's ironic that the things that we designed and produced as humankind, those are exactly the things that separated us.

    ↗Neri Oxman: Biology, Art, and Science of Design & Engineering with Nature | Lex Fridman Podcast #394youtube.com 1st of 16 in this recording

    Interesting

  3. Our readingWhat nature wants is to increase information while decreasing entropy, and that is the objective any design working with nature has to serve.

    Their wordsSo we keep coming back to this answer of nature wants to increase information, but decrease entropy. So find order, but constantly increase the information scale.

    ↗Neri Oxman: Biology, Art, and Science of Design & Engineering with Nature | Lex Fridman Podcast #394youtube.com 4th of 16 in this recording

    Interesting

  5. Our readingLiving systems can be laid out on two axes, material sophistication and communication, and an organism that excels on one is usually poor on the other.

    Their wordsSo if you think about entire all of nature, let's say all of living systems as a matrix that runs across two axes one is material sophistication, which is terribly relevant for designers, and the other is communication. The termites ace on communication, but their material sophistication is crap.

    ↗Neri Oxman: Biology, Art, and Science of Design & Engineering with Nature | Lex Fridman Podcast #394youtube.com 5th of 16 in this recording

    Interesting

  7. Our readingThe way we make things is out of tune with the time dimension of the natural world, and that has to change even if it means designing on the scale of centuries.

    Their wordsAnd the way of being in the physical world today is really not in tune with the time dimension of the natural world at all, and that needs to change.

    ↗Neri Oxman: Biology, Art, and Science of Design & Engineering with Nature | Lex Fridman Podcast #394youtube.com 11th of 16 in this recording

    Interesting

  9. Our readingA designer must never stop at the object: a shoe, a chair or a building is only honestly designed once you account for the whole system it is sourced from.

    Their wordsAnd when you think about a product and you think about a shoe or a chair or a perfume or a building, you don't stop at the object. You want to go all the way to the system.

    ↗Neri Oxman: Biology, Art, and Science of Design & Engineering with Nature | Lex Fridman Podcast #394youtube.com 13th of 16 in this recording

    Interesting

  11. Our readingThe future of design is soft control: building highly controlled systems whose whole purpose is to enable the loss of control.

    Their wordsSo I think the future of design is in that soft control, is in the ability to design highly controlled systems that enable the loss of control.

    ↗Neri Oxman: Biology, Art, and Science of Design & Engineering with Nature | Lex Fridman Podcast #394youtube.com 15th of 16 in this recording

    Interesting