Material Ecology Quotes

“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.”
― Neri Oxman

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

“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.”
― Neri Oxman

“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.”
― Neri Oxman

“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.”
― Neri Oxman

“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.”
― Neri Oxman

“Imagine that nature is the single most important client in the architectural practice.”
― Neri Oxman

“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.”
― Neri Oxman

“Through life and programmed decomposition - shelter becomes organism, and organism becomes shelter.”
― Neri Oxman

“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.”
― Neri Oxman, Neri Oxman: Material Ecology

“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.”
― Neri Oxman

“A biomarker of evolution, melanin is the color of life.”
― Neri Oxman

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

“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.”
― Neri Oxman, Neri Oxman: Material Ecology

“A tree becomes a tower, a tower regrows a tree.”
― Neri Oxman

“Architects are now on the look for materials and substances that can enhance biodiversity and rewild living systems.”
― Neri Oxman

“Melanin represents unity in the diversity of life on earth.”
― Neri Oxman

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

“To speak in nature's language, we must prioritize bio-based structural materials; biopolymers.”
― Neri Oxman

“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.”
― Neri Oxman

“Let's architect a future of synergy between the natural and the built environment.”
― Neri Oxman

“A skyscraper is not a tree - not yet.”
― Neri Oxman

“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.”
― Neri Oxman

“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.”
― Neri Oxman

“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.”
― Neri Oxman

“A lot of business opportunities exist at the intersection of synthetic biology and material ecology.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“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.”
― Neri Oxman

“A lot of business opportunities exist at the intersection of synthetic biology and material ecology. And when that's applied at global systems level scale, it has multiplicative value effect for humanity as a whole.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“Improving the material ecology of all products is one way to improve supply chains.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“When the mother nurses her child, the boundary of the individual self becomes permeable and the common good is the only one that matters. The maternal gift economy is a biological imperative. There is no meritocracy or earning of sustenance. Mothers do not sell their milk to their babies, it is pure gift, sos that life can continue. The currency of this economy is the flow of gratitude, the flow of love, literally in support of life.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World