Neri Oxman

Neri Oxman

Neri Oxman is a leading Israeli architect, best known for her association with the Sony Corporation Career Development and the MIT Media Lab, where she works as an associate professor of Media Arts and Sciences, in addition to establishing and leading the Mediated Matter research group. The Mediated Matter conducts research and explorations on the mediation between digital designing and fabrication technologies, and how the environmental elements have a string influence on the design and construction of buildings. Oxman has given birth to the term “material ecology”, which refers to the study and design of products and processes integrating environmentally aware, computational, form-generation processes and digital fabrication. Neri Oxman strives to inculcate the influence of nature in her design by infusing the natural environment through novel digital design technology in her designs. She is applauded for her work in digital fabrication and construction, as well as, architectural and product design.

She attended the Technion Institute of Technology, and although mildly interested in architecture, she decided to pursue medicine. Neri Oxman, now a prominent architect of her time, did not intend to pursue architecture as a career path. She was, in fact, a medical student at the Hebrew University. However, after changing her mind, she enrolled at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology and later, the Architectural Association (RIBA 2). She then attended the MIT, where she received her post-doctoral degree in design computation as a Presidential Fellow at the institute. During this time, she formulated her concept and strategy of material-based design computation, through which, the formation of the material structure is regarded as a novel form of computation.

Oxman is a notable academician and has conducted lectures and workshops at numerous prestigious institutions including Harvard, UC Berkeley, and the MOMA.

Oxman’s work has been displayed numerous prestigious museums and galleries, in 2012, the Centre Georges Pompidou Museum, Paris, bought her work for their private collection, and her work is also displayed in the permanent collection of the MOMA, New York. Other famous exhibitions include the Smithsonian Institute (Washington, DC), Museum of Science (Boston, MA), FRAC Collection (Orleans, France), and the 2010 Beijing Biennale. Her remarkable work and staggering fame has not gone unnoticed by the magazines, and several leading magazines and journals have done features on her. In 2008, she was named “Revolutionary Mind” by SEED Magazine, while Esquire added her to its list of the ‘Best and Brightest’. She was added to the list of ‘The 20 most influential architects to shape our future’ by ICON in 2009, and the same year, she named as one of the ’100 most creative people’ by the Fast Company.

Neri Oxman has been the recipient of numerous awards and accolades, including the 40 Under 40 Building Design and Construction Award, a Vilcek Prize for Design award, a Graham Foundation Carter Manny Award, the International Earth Award for Future-Crucial Design, and a METROPOLIS Next Generation Award among many others.