1 00:00:15,432 --> 00:00:18,893 [Neri] Humans have been making buildings 2 00:00:18,977 --> 00:00:21,062 for thousands and thousands of years 3 00:00:21,146 --> 00:00:23,273 with bricks and mortar, 4 00:00:24,024 --> 00:00:25,900 and steel and glass. 5 00:00:28,153 --> 00:00:31,364 But along with those materials, we've also been developing 6 00:00:31,448 --> 00:00:33,616 carbon fiber and plastics. 7 00:00:33,700 --> 00:00:37,203 And these materials have left a mark on the planet. 8 00:00:40,331 --> 00:00:42,542 Can we design our way out of this? 9 00:00:43,668 --> 00:00:44,961 If we are to survive, 10 00:00:45,045 --> 00:00:48,548 we must design our way out of this. 11 00:00:49,424 --> 00:00:50,800 It's now on us 12 00:00:51,217 --> 00:00:53,386 to decide where we're going from here. 13 00:00:59,684 --> 00:01:02,353 The story begins with a Big Bang, 14 00:01:03,855 --> 00:01:05,065 with the first tree, 15 00:01:05,732 --> 00:01:06,816 with the first human. 16 00:01:07,692 --> 00:01:11,446 It's a story about what happens when nature and culture unite. 17 00:01:13,031 --> 00:01:16,785 [woman] She's got huge ideas for big change on a massive scale. 18 00:01:16,868 --> 00:01:18,411 [multiple voices] Neri Oxman. 19 00:01:18,953 --> 00:01:21,122 [man] Neri's work redefines the relationship 20 00:01:21,206 --> 00:01:22,791 between matter and environment. 21 00:01:24,375 --> 00:01:26,669 [man 2] Neri is the embodiment 22 00:01:26,753 --> 00:01:29,130 of art, design, science, and engineering 23 00:01:29,214 --> 00:01:30,381 in one person. 24 00:01:31,299 --> 00:01:34,761 [man 3] She does design that involves new kinds of materials. 25 00:01:36,971 --> 00:01:41,059 [man 4] Doing what nature did, but perhaps doing a better job. 26 00:01:41,643 --> 00:01:45,021 [man 5] And she's now at the threshold of trying to show a new way. 27 00:01:49,192 --> 00:01:51,194 [man] What question do you get the most? 28 00:01:51,277 --> 00:01:53,029 Oh, what the hell do I do? 29 00:02:03,039 --> 00:02:04,374 [Neri] My name is Neri... 30 00:02:05,375 --> 00:02:08,503 and I am many things. 31 00:02:08,586 --> 00:02:09,420 [laughs] 32 00:02:11,172 --> 00:02:13,383 I grew up in Haifa, Israel. 33 00:02:14,926 --> 00:02:16,678 I was trained as an architect, 34 00:02:17,470 --> 00:02:19,639 educated as a medical doctor, 35 00:02:20,473 --> 00:02:22,225 and I am now a professor at MIT. 36 00:02:25,520 --> 00:02:27,522 We live in the most exciting time, 37 00:02:27,605 --> 00:02:30,233 but also the scariest time for designers, 38 00:02:30,859 --> 00:02:33,570 where everything material, everything artificial, 39 00:02:33,653 --> 00:02:37,240 can be designed at the scale and sophistication of a cell. 40 00:02:39,325 --> 00:02:41,536 My focus is designing new materials 41 00:02:41,619 --> 00:02:44,372 for, with, and by nature. 42 00:02:47,709 --> 00:02:52,088 Today, we can look at the world in the resolution 43 00:02:52,172 --> 00:02:54,465 almost of human consciousness. 44 00:02:54,841 --> 00:02:56,676 From the very, very small scale, 45 00:02:56,759 --> 00:02:59,012 the scale of particles and the sub-atomic particles, 46 00:02:59,095 --> 00:03:00,847 to atoms, nucleotides in the genome, 47 00:03:00,930 --> 00:03:03,850 to cells, to the human mind, to the Earth, to the solar system, 48 00:03:03,933 --> 00:03:07,770 to the Milky Way, to the visible universe, to maybe parallel universes. 49 00:03:08,646 --> 00:03:11,441 Suddenly, the design and engineering 50 00:03:11,941 --> 00:03:14,903 is happening with constituent parts 51 00:03:14,986 --> 00:03:18,156 that are down at the atomic and sub-atomic level. 52 00:03:18,948 --> 00:03:22,911 Start to be able to do things that only nature could do before. 53 00:03:23,286 --> 00:03:24,871 That's pretty incredible. 54 00:03:26,372 --> 00:03:29,584 [Neri] This is really where the future of design is going. 55 00:03:29,667 --> 00:03:32,045 Good designers will act as alchemists 56 00:03:32,128 --> 00:03:35,381 that mix and match atoms to bits, to genes, 57 00:03:36,049 --> 00:03:38,635 and scale up these techniques and technologies. 58 00:03:39,135 --> 00:03:41,346 But in order to build big, 59 00:03:41,888 --> 00:03:44,224 we had to think small. 60 00:03:45,600 --> 00:03:48,311 [man] Machines, inventions, power blackout the past. 61 00:03:48,394 --> 00:03:50,855 Forget the quiet cities, bring in the steam and steel, 62 00:03:50,939 --> 00:03:52,607 the iron men, the giants. 63 00:03:52,690 --> 00:03:56,110 Pillars of smoke by day, pillars of fire by night, pillars of progress. 64 00:03:56,194 --> 00:04:00,823 [Neri] The Industrial Age brought about a kind of design thinking whereby, 65 00:04:01,241 --> 00:04:03,117 because of the assembly line, 66 00:04:03,493 --> 00:04:06,996 we tend to design products and buildings and wearables 67 00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:09,874 and even cities out of parts. 68 00:04:10,917 --> 00:04:14,796 For thousands of years, we have been making 69 00:04:15,088 --> 00:04:19,092 and building things with single purpose materials. 70 00:04:19,425 --> 00:04:20,760 Glass for a window, 71 00:04:20,843 --> 00:04:22,387 brick for load bearing, 72 00:04:22,470 --> 00:04:23,888 wood for spanning. 73 00:04:24,597 --> 00:04:29,352 But now comes an age where new possibilities open up. 74 00:04:30,311 --> 00:04:33,898 Neri has her model, and the model is nature. 75 00:04:35,608 --> 00:04:37,235 Nature is full of organisms 76 00:04:37,318 --> 00:04:40,154 in which materials do these complex things 77 00:04:40,238 --> 00:04:41,948 in a most efficient way. 78 00:04:43,199 --> 00:04:45,493 [Neri] Can we design robots that spin silk? 79 00:04:46,411 --> 00:04:48,830 These are the kinds of questions we ask. 80 00:05:02,885 --> 00:05:05,555 Drawing, I think, is an act of meditation. 81 00:05:10,226 --> 00:05:13,604 Because as you give it form and you draw its lines 82 00:05:13,771 --> 00:05:15,481 and its textures, 83 00:05:15,690 --> 00:05:17,191 and then its colors, 84 00:05:17,275 --> 00:05:20,403 it sort of tells you what it wants to become. 85 00:05:23,614 --> 00:05:25,283 [man] I didn't realize you were left-handed. 86 00:05:25,366 --> 00:05:26,200 [Neri] Yeah. 87 00:05:27,243 --> 00:05:28,661 [man] Does that mean anything? 88 00:05:29,412 --> 00:05:31,289 They say they're more creative. 89 00:05:31,497 --> 00:05:32,332 [laughs] 90 00:05:35,043 --> 00:05:37,754 I'm drawing the next version of Aguahoja 91 00:05:38,129 --> 00:05:40,423 for the Smithsonian in New York. 92 00:05:41,382 --> 00:05:45,762 We will be designing a bio-compatible structure 93 00:05:46,346 --> 00:05:48,973 made entirely of materials that are natural. 94 00:05:49,766 --> 00:05:52,602 Like chitin, which can be found in crustaceans like shrimp shells, 95 00:05:52,685 --> 00:05:56,689 or pectin, which you can find in lemons and the skin of apples. 96 00:05:57,815 --> 00:06:01,944 The vision behind the project is to completely omit 97 00:06:02,028 --> 00:06:04,947 the use of plastics on planet Earth. 98 00:06:06,783 --> 00:06:09,744 There is little structure in the beginning when we start a project. 99 00:06:09,827 --> 00:06:12,038 We sort of look in all directions. 100 00:06:13,873 --> 00:06:16,417 And so, we would often, for a single project, 101 00:06:16,501 --> 00:06:19,045 have what we like to call a library of experiments 102 00:06:19,754 --> 00:06:23,549 where there would be dozens and maybe hundreds of iterations 103 00:06:23,633 --> 00:06:26,886 until we reach the right one for a particular structure. 104 00:06:29,305 --> 00:06:32,058 There is a beautiful saying in Hebrew. 105 00:06:32,141 --> 00:06:34,727 [speaking Hebrew] 106 00:06:35,144 --> 00:06:38,815 [in English] Meaning "all is expected, all is known." 107 00:06:38,898 --> 00:06:40,858 And permission is given to change 108 00:06:40,942 --> 00:06:43,528 everything at any moment in time. 109 00:06:44,779 --> 00:06:46,823 It's also how I work. 110 00:06:47,657 --> 00:06:50,159 We have an idea, we follow it until we change it. 111 00:06:50,243 --> 00:06:53,788 And at any moment in time, there is this permission 112 00:06:53,871 --> 00:06:56,416 I give myself, but also to any other member on the team, 113 00:06:56,791 --> 00:06:59,585 to change the ideas and change the project as they go. 114 00:07:03,423 --> 00:07:07,885 The Mediated Matter group, which I lead, is a lab within the MIT Media Lab. 115 00:07:08,803 --> 00:07:11,222 For Neri to come to the Media Lab, 116 00:07:11,556 --> 00:07:13,224 quite frankly, was destiny. 117 00:07:15,518 --> 00:07:17,353 [male computerized voice] MIT Media Lab. 118 00:07:17,437 --> 00:07:19,188 [Nicholas] I had built a lab 119 00:07:19,272 --> 00:07:22,066 that had to do with the human-computer interface. 120 00:07:23,151 --> 00:07:26,696 So, we did all these things that were considered crazy at the time. 121 00:07:26,988 --> 00:07:29,323 We had the first flat panel displays. 122 00:07:29,407 --> 00:07:30,575 They were dismissed. 123 00:07:31,075 --> 00:07:34,120 Working on touch, that you would actually touch a display. 124 00:07:34,203 --> 00:07:36,080 People thought that was very stupid. 125 00:07:37,206 --> 00:07:38,916 We were in the School of Design, 126 00:07:39,417 --> 00:07:41,127 so we had a certain license. 127 00:07:41,836 --> 00:07:43,045 License to be weird. 128 00:07:45,006 --> 00:07:47,675 The president of MIT at that time 129 00:07:48,134 --> 00:07:50,178 was very interested in the arts. 130 00:07:50,261 --> 00:07:53,848 He identified that MIT was a very, very special place. 131 00:07:54,265 --> 00:07:56,726 All of the technologies were all being developed here. 132 00:07:56,809 --> 00:07:59,437 I mean, heck, the coolest place in the universe is at MIT. 133 00:07:59,520 --> 00:08:02,940 Everything was being developed here. And yet, there was... 134 00:08:03,441 --> 00:08:04,901 there was this void. [echoes] 135 00:08:05,276 --> 00:08:08,738 [Nicholas] The MIT president was bemoaning the fact there was no lab 136 00:08:08,821 --> 00:08:13,284 that mixed art and science and engineering in some deep way. 137 00:08:13,743 --> 00:08:16,871 And I said, "Jerry, I'll build you one." 138 00:08:17,788 --> 00:08:19,874 [male computerized voice] MIT Media Lab. 139 00:08:23,085 --> 00:08:25,671 [woman] The Media Lab is a place 140 00:08:25,755 --> 00:08:28,799 where you have to think about things 141 00:08:28,883 --> 00:08:31,552 50 years out, at least, or 100 years out. 142 00:08:31,636 --> 00:08:32,970 If you're making something 143 00:08:33,054 --> 00:08:36,557 that's applicable to the world today, here, you're too late. 144 00:08:39,894 --> 00:08:44,148 [Nicholas] I was involved with a lot of the last faculty hires 145 00:08:44,607 --> 00:08:46,067 where we have to advertise. 146 00:08:46,150 --> 00:08:49,529 And I put the word "misfit" in the first sentence. 147 00:08:49,612 --> 00:08:53,366 And even went further to say, "If you can get a faculty position 148 00:08:53,449 --> 00:08:56,327 in some other department at some other university, go. 149 00:08:57,828 --> 00:09:00,540 But if you can't, come see us." 150 00:09:00,623 --> 00:09:03,251 I think we all live well in the weird. 151 00:09:04,085 --> 00:09:05,628 [Neri] This was the place. 152 00:09:05,878 --> 00:09:08,714 This was the one and only place 153 00:09:09,090 --> 00:09:10,883 to create what we've created. 154 00:09:12,051 --> 00:09:14,053 Neri is perhaps the best example 155 00:09:14,136 --> 00:09:15,555 of somebody who came 156 00:09:15,638 --> 00:09:17,932 and then integrated herself 157 00:09:18,224 --> 00:09:20,768 in the perfect intersection 158 00:09:21,060 --> 00:09:23,104 of design, science, and engineering. 159 00:09:25,648 --> 00:09:29,193 [Neri] The way I think about the group is a kind of Noah's Ark. 160 00:09:30,778 --> 00:09:33,114 The ideal situation would be to have two of both. 161 00:09:33,197 --> 00:09:36,033 Two material scientists, two biologists. 162 00:09:36,117 --> 00:09:38,244 -I'm a computer scientist by training. -Graphic design. 163 00:09:38,327 --> 00:09:39,579 Biomedical engineer. 164 00:09:39,662 --> 00:09:42,331 [Neri] Two product designers, two computational scientists. 165 00:09:42,415 --> 00:09:44,000 -Artificial life. -Neuroscience. 166 00:09:44,083 --> 00:09:45,543 -[Neri] Two architects. -Architecture. 167 00:09:45,626 --> 00:09:46,919 Mechanical engineer. 168 00:09:47,003 --> 00:09:49,589 But right now, we have to do just about everything. 169 00:09:49,839 --> 00:09:52,925 [woman] I came from a pretty hardcore neurotechnology group. 170 00:09:53,009 --> 00:09:55,720 But meeting Neri pretty much once 171 00:09:55,970 --> 00:09:59,265 was enough to kind of change my mind and my life course. 172 00:10:00,808 --> 00:10:03,394 [man] There's a feeling when you interact with Neri 173 00:10:03,477 --> 00:10:05,104 that you could wake up tomorrow 174 00:10:05,187 --> 00:10:08,232 and come up with the craziest idea that you could possibly think of 175 00:10:08,316 --> 00:10:10,651 and it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility. 176 00:10:11,277 --> 00:10:14,864 [Nicholas] Her lab is populated in the middle of the night, on weekends. 177 00:10:14,947 --> 00:10:16,866 And guess what? She's there, too. 178 00:10:17,450 --> 00:10:19,201 [Neri] I design everything. 179 00:10:19,702 --> 00:10:21,871 The team, their interactions. 180 00:10:21,954 --> 00:10:23,456 They would hate hearing it, 181 00:10:23,539 --> 00:10:26,125 but there is a big brother, 182 00:10:26,208 --> 00:10:27,585 or a small mother. 183 00:10:40,765 --> 00:10:44,268 We have this running joke where the choice of font 184 00:10:44,352 --> 00:10:47,313 is no less important than the choice of a cell 185 00:10:47,396 --> 00:10:48,981 whose genes are being hacked. 186 00:10:49,065 --> 00:10:50,858 And, in the end, 187 00:10:50,941 --> 00:10:53,736 great fonts will help create great genomes and vice versa. 188 00:10:53,819 --> 00:10:55,112 I truly believe in that. 189 00:10:58,199 --> 00:11:00,242 In the beginning when I started the research group, 190 00:11:00,326 --> 00:11:02,870 there was great confusion, and... [chuckles] 191 00:11:02,953 --> 00:11:04,580 I think there still is. 192 00:11:04,914 --> 00:11:06,666 I mean, it's all pretty weird. 193 00:11:07,500 --> 00:11:09,627 [Neri] But technology catches up with the imagination, 194 00:11:10,252 --> 00:11:12,880 and so, therefore, imagination has responsibility. 195 00:11:13,589 --> 00:11:15,591 I mean, we can learn to grow buildings. 196 00:11:19,804 --> 00:11:22,723 [Sunanda] Before I joined this group, the main thing that we knew about Neri 197 00:11:22,807 --> 00:11:26,602 was that her group had unleashed 6,500 silkworms in the lobby. 198 00:11:29,939 --> 00:11:33,234 [Neri] Silk Pavilion was a three-meter diameter dome 199 00:11:33,317 --> 00:11:37,196 that was built using 6,500 silkworms that were Fed-Ex ordered 200 00:11:37,279 --> 00:11:38,989 from an online silk farm, 201 00:11:39,281 --> 00:11:44,286 and were, uh, placed on a robotically-spun fiber silk dome. 202 00:11:46,956 --> 00:11:48,958 [Nicholas] She is very much a source of, 203 00:11:49,250 --> 00:11:52,002 you know, consternation in our purchasing department. 204 00:11:52,586 --> 00:11:57,007 MIT gets a little puzzled when you order a few thousand silkworms. 205 00:11:58,008 --> 00:12:00,469 We explored alternative ways 206 00:12:00,553 --> 00:12:02,513 with which to build and manufacture 207 00:12:02,847 --> 00:12:05,516 that are aligned with nature's way. 208 00:12:06,475 --> 00:12:09,186 That is, growth as opposed to assembly. 209 00:12:09,895 --> 00:12:12,648 [Nicholas] I remember seeing it being built by the worms. 210 00:12:12,898 --> 00:12:15,109 And sort of, uh... There was scaffolding, 211 00:12:15,192 --> 00:12:17,611 and it was quite a... quite an accomplishment. 212 00:12:18,112 --> 00:12:21,741 [Neri] In the silk industry, we are very accustomed 213 00:12:21,824 --> 00:12:23,993 to boiling the silk cocoons 214 00:12:24,076 --> 00:12:26,328 in order to unravel the silk. 215 00:12:26,412 --> 00:12:29,331 And in that process, we kill all those silkworms. 216 00:12:32,168 --> 00:12:35,129 And with Silk Pavilion, we came up with this approach 217 00:12:35,212 --> 00:12:39,175 of cohabiting and co-fabricating at the same time. 218 00:12:40,426 --> 00:12:44,513 And so, the cycle of life we capitulated on this project 219 00:12:44,597 --> 00:12:46,724 as the product was being created. 220 00:12:47,641 --> 00:12:50,311 [man] I have rarely had Neri talk to me about anything 221 00:12:50,394 --> 00:12:51,854 and seen it coming. 222 00:12:52,980 --> 00:12:55,316 And a lot of her sensibility is... is that, 223 00:12:55,399 --> 00:12:57,485 how do you bring the unexpected in, 224 00:12:57,568 --> 00:13:00,488 but then get it to surprise you in a... in a wonderful way? 225 00:13:01,697 --> 00:13:04,450 [horn blares] 226 00:13:04,533 --> 00:13:06,452 [Neri speaking indistinctly in Hebrew] 227 00:13:07,745 --> 00:13:09,455 [siren wails in the distance] 228 00:13:13,083 --> 00:13:15,711 [in Hebrew] We're doing another Silk Pavilion installation. 229 00:13:15,795 --> 00:13:17,254 Do you remember that? 230 00:13:17,338 --> 00:13:20,466 And so, we're working on a lot of exhibitions. 231 00:13:20,883 --> 00:13:24,637 And I'm thinking about how to bring the work to the next level 232 00:13:25,095 --> 00:13:28,265 that would be more practice-oriented. 233 00:13:28,849 --> 00:13:31,101 Less research-oriented, more practice-oriented 234 00:13:31,185 --> 00:13:33,354 and more real world deployment. 235 00:13:35,022 --> 00:13:37,525 [Neri, in English] I miss Israel mostly when I'm there, 236 00:13:37,942 --> 00:13:40,236 because I'm so nostalgic about that country 237 00:13:40,319 --> 00:13:42,446 and what it was, what it symbolized. 238 00:13:44,031 --> 00:13:45,491 I always tell my team, 239 00:13:46,367 --> 00:13:49,370 "You have to go away to come back home. 240 00:13:51,455 --> 00:13:55,459 You'll never really truly have a sense of home until you leave home." 241 00:13:57,711 --> 00:14:00,840 But when you come back and smell the air, 242 00:14:01,590 --> 00:14:04,051 you go back all the way to childhood. 243 00:14:07,805 --> 00:14:11,600 I have so many friends who would never go back to childhood. 244 00:14:11,684 --> 00:14:13,644 I would in a second. [snaps fingers] 245 00:14:13,727 --> 00:14:16,647 Like now, I'm ready to be three again. 246 00:14:20,234 --> 00:14:22,194 I remember as a kid growing up, 247 00:14:22,278 --> 00:14:24,780 waking up in the middle of the stormy night. 248 00:14:26,073 --> 00:14:30,119 I could hear the wind blowing against this very old terrace 249 00:14:30,202 --> 00:14:31,871 that... that I had in my bedroom. 250 00:14:32,872 --> 00:14:36,542 And I remember opening it and seeing all this white stuff. 251 00:14:39,003 --> 00:14:42,715 And it all felt so incredibly magical. 252 00:14:45,968 --> 00:14:50,472 And I remember grabbing a piece of that substance, that matter, 253 00:14:50,806 --> 00:14:53,183 and putting it into a plastic bag, 254 00:14:53,267 --> 00:14:54,935 and putting it under my pillow, 255 00:14:55,019 --> 00:14:56,812 and waiting to show my parents 256 00:14:56,896 --> 00:14:59,106 this magical material that fell from the sky. 257 00:15:01,191 --> 00:15:04,111 And I remember waking up in this wet bed, 258 00:15:04,194 --> 00:15:07,698 and being so extremely disappointed and trying to make sense of it all. 259 00:15:09,408 --> 00:15:13,579 And I think that sense of awe and wonder that I had as a three-year-old 260 00:15:13,662 --> 00:15:17,291 that never saw or experienced snow stayed with me. 261 00:15:21,420 --> 00:15:23,672 And that innocence is still there. 262 00:15:27,384 --> 00:15:28,928 I hope it's still there. 263 00:15:32,139 --> 00:15:33,349 Oh, what's that? 264 00:15:34,099 --> 00:15:35,809 -Is this yours? -[man] What? 265 00:15:36,143 --> 00:15:37,686 -What's on the screen. -Yeah. 266 00:15:37,770 --> 00:15:39,647 [Neri] That's cool. This is for Aguahoja? 267 00:15:39,730 --> 00:15:42,024 [man] This is a process that starts with nothing 268 00:15:42,107 --> 00:15:43,692 -and it grows across it. -[Neri] Mm-hmm. 269 00:15:43,776 --> 00:15:46,654 The idea being that we're kind of used to working with things that grow. 270 00:15:46,737 --> 00:15:49,448 Like, that's what we do as a group, is we direct the growth. 271 00:15:49,531 --> 00:15:50,574 [Neri] That looks great. 272 00:15:50,658 --> 00:15:53,202 [Josh] What's nice about this organism is you can stop its growth, 273 00:15:53,285 --> 00:15:55,871 and then start it again if you just add some moisture. 274 00:15:55,955 --> 00:15:59,041 -Pick that up and hold it for a second. -That would be-- Okay. 275 00:15:59,875 --> 00:16:02,378 -[Josh] So, that's pectin. -Then move your finger out of the way. 276 00:16:02,461 --> 00:16:03,379 [Josh] Yeah. 277 00:16:05,798 --> 00:16:08,425 -[Neri] Yeah. -[Josh] So, it's a thermochromic compound 278 00:16:08,509 --> 00:16:10,010 that I mixed in with the pectin. 279 00:16:10,094 --> 00:16:12,638 That's awesome, because it looks like paper, Josh. 280 00:16:12,721 --> 00:16:15,724 [Josh] Yeah. And so, you can touch it, and it will also respond to heat. 281 00:16:15,808 --> 00:16:18,644 So, it'll change color back to the regular pectin color 282 00:16:18,727 --> 00:16:21,063 at, um, 86 degrees Fahrenheit. 283 00:16:21,146 --> 00:16:23,023 -And it is translucent? -Yep. 284 00:16:23,107 --> 00:16:24,566 -Yeah, exactly. -[Neri] Yeah. 285 00:16:24,650 --> 00:16:25,776 -Yeah. -[Neri] Okay. 286 00:16:26,026 --> 00:16:27,820 That's incredible progress. 287 00:16:28,445 --> 00:16:29,905 I love a good verb. 288 00:16:30,322 --> 00:16:32,825 In fact, I think all nouns should be verbs, 289 00:16:32,908 --> 00:16:35,327 including "naturing" as opposed to "nature." 290 00:16:36,161 --> 00:16:39,873 I often ask, "How can we nature this building into being?" 291 00:16:40,124 --> 00:16:43,794 Also, Mother Nature, we have the responsibility to mother nature. 292 00:16:43,877 --> 00:16:46,380 Not consider it as boundless, 293 00:16:46,463 --> 00:16:50,509 but rather as an entity that is now crying for love. 294 00:16:57,975 --> 00:17:00,019 We are in Haifa, 295 00:17:00,102 --> 00:17:02,604 the third largest city in Israel. 296 00:17:03,647 --> 00:17:07,109 To me, if Jerusalem is about religion 297 00:17:07,192 --> 00:17:09,653 and Tel Aviv is about the street culture, 298 00:17:09,737 --> 00:17:11,613 Haifa is about nature. 299 00:17:15,117 --> 00:17:17,911 [Moshe] I knew her in Haifa, growing up. 300 00:17:18,620 --> 00:17:21,498 I think of my childhood, and I think Neri does too, 301 00:17:21,832 --> 00:17:24,835 of having had the privilege to grow up in something magical. 302 00:17:26,336 --> 00:17:29,298 In Haifa, the mountains rise right out of the sea, 303 00:17:29,381 --> 00:17:31,675 and they have a... 304 00:17:31,759 --> 00:17:33,635 a very rich plant life. 305 00:17:35,137 --> 00:17:38,348 And so, we always lived right next to nature. 306 00:17:40,976 --> 00:17:44,605 [Neri] My grandmother had a ginormous garden. 307 00:17:45,981 --> 00:17:49,985 It was on the top of a beautiful mountain called Mount Carmel, 308 00:17:50,444 --> 00:17:53,197 where we could see the sea. 309 00:17:54,323 --> 00:17:57,367 The garden had fig trees, apple trees, 310 00:17:57,451 --> 00:18:00,329 poppy seeds, various types of birds. 311 00:18:01,789 --> 00:18:04,792 The quality of the sun, the outdoors, 312 00:18:04,958 --> 00:18:07,753 the smell of the pine nuts. 313 00:18:08,545 --> 00:18:10,089 It was my Garden of Eden. 314 00:18:14,468 --> 00:18:16,428 And then at 18, the army, boom. 315 00:18:20,516 --> 00:18:23,102 [Joi] She was a lieutenant in the Israeli Air Force. 316 00:18:25,854 --> 00:18:27,189 [Neri] You enter the army, 317 00:18:27,731 --> 00:18:29,399 and you're faced with death 318 00:18:29,817 --> 00:18:31,568 at a very, very early age. 319 00:18:33,779 --> 00:18:36,073 I saw everything when I was in the military. 320 00:18:36,156 --> 00:18:36,990 Everything. 321 00:18:38,909 --> 00:18:42,746 I saw the extremes of the human spirit. 322 00:18:45,499 --> 00:18:47,543 Many things that I'll never, ever share. 323 00:18:48,877 --> 00:18:51,255 And that had a great effect on me. 324 00:18:54,299 --> 00:18:58,637 You're faced with an internal conflict. 325 00:18:59,930 --> 00:19:02,641 The duality of wanting to protect... 326 00:19:03,183 --> 00:19:04,601 your identity, 327 00:19:04,685 --> 00:19:06,186 but also wanting 328 00:19:06,395 --> 00:19:08,897 to embrace other identities. 329 00:19:13,068 --> 00:19:16,697 The discovery of innocence is its loss. 330 00:19:18,157 --> 00:19:19,199 And... 331 00:19:20,117 --> 00:19:23,245 that is perhaps the ultimate Israeli experience. 332 00:19:25,956 --> 00:19:27,416 [Joi] From the gutsy Israeli thing, 333 00:19:27,499 --> 00:19:31,378 she has a kind of gutsy confidence 334 00:19:31,670 --> 00:19:34,840 that allows her to be very adventurous with her thoughts. 335 00:19:43,223 --> 00:19:46,977 [Neri] There is the myth that Einstein and Picasso 336 00:19:47,060 --> 00:19:49,646 met in 1904 in Paris. 337 00:19:52,691 --> 00:19:55,444 Picasso started the Cubist movement. 338 00:19:58,071 --> 00:20:00,407 Einstein, the General Theory of Relativity. 339 00:20:01,783 --> 00:20:05,454 Both were asking questions about space and time. 340 00:20:06,663 --> 00:20:10,250 And one expressed himself through painting and sculpture, 341 00:20:10,334 --> 00:20:12,753 the other through a mathematical theorem. 342 00:20:14,129 --> 00:20:17,216 But they were both questioning the world around us. 343 00:20:21,511 --> 00:20:23,513 Usually, art is for expression, 344 00:20:24,264 --> 00:20:25,974 science is for exploration, 345 00:20:26,475 --> 00:20:28,185 engineering is for invention, 346 00:20:28,644 --> 00:20:30,437 and design is for communication. 347 00:20:33,482 --> 00:20:35,817 And I thought, "Why can't we take these four squares 348 00:20:35,901 --> 00:20:38,362 and create a circle out of them, a clock... 349 00:20:40,781 --> 00:20:42,950 ...where you're constantly moving or shifting 350 00:20:43,033 --> 00:20:44,701 from one domain to another?" 351 00:20:46,870 --> 00:20:50,207 And the input for one domain becomes the output for another. 352 00:20:50,791 --> 00:20:51,875 So, if you think of science, 353 00:20:51,959 --> 00:20:54,878 science converts information into knowledge. 354 00:20:56,296 --> 00:20:58,840 And engineering converts knowledge into utility. 355 00:20:59,883 --> 00:21:04,846 And design converts utility into cultural behavior and context. 356 00:21:06,473 --> 00:21:09,017 And then art is taking that cultural behavior 357 00:21:09,101 --> 00:21:11,353 and questions our perception of the world. 358 00:21:12,938 --> 00:21:15,691 [Sunanda] It shows that there is sort of a flow of information, 359 00:21:15,774 --> 00:21:18,735 a flow of creativity that happens across all disciplines. 360 00:21:18,819 --> 00:21:20,737 And I do think the more I spend time in this lab, 361 00:21:20,821 --> 00:21:23,115 the more I venture into the different areas. 362 00:21:24,616 --> 00:21:26,576 [Neri] And if you believe in the Cinderella moment, 363 00:21:26,660 --> 00:21:27,828 in the twelve o'clock, 364 00:21:28,829 --> 00:21:30,914 in that place, in the midnight hour, 365 00:21:30,998 --> 00:21:33,166 you know, it's where Picasso meets Einstein. 366 00:21:33,250 --> 00:21:34,626 Art meets science. 367 00:21:34,710 --> 00:21:38,505 Changes in our perception affect the way we capture data, 368 00:21:39,298 --> 00:21:41,091 and can only happen 369 00:21:41,174 --> 00:21:42,759 if you believe in magic. 370 00:21:43,135 --> 00:21:46,471 It can only happen if you can suspend your disbelief. 371 00:21:51,685 --> 00:21:55,188 I tell the team members, "You have to be ready for your project 372 00:21:55,272 --> 00:21:58,150 to appear in the atrium of the Museum of Modern Art, 373 00:21:58,233 --> 00:22:00,944 and at the same time, on the cover of Nature and Science. 374 00:22:01,611 --> 00:22:04,197 We don't do either. It's always both. 375 00:22:05,282 --> 00:22:07,993 I like the art side because that's when things get totally out of hand. 376 00:22:08,076 --> 00:22:10,454 You don't know if people are gonna try to touch your structure 377 00:22:10,537 --> 00:22:12,539 or if they're gonna say that it smells funny. 378 00:22:12,622 --> 00:22:15,709 That's kind of the magical moment because that's when everyone gets to understand 379 00:22:15,792 --> 00:22:18,128 how they feel about the thing that you've made. 380 00:22:19,713 --> 00:22:23,300 [Nicholas] We have used artistic venues 381 00:22:23,383 --> 00:22:28,764 to promote some of the riskiest science ideas we've ever had, 382 00:22:29,348 --> 00:22:32,768 where they get the cover of, "Oh, that's art." 383 00:22:34,394 --> 00:22:36,980 [Sunanda] Some of the greatest first scientists 384 00:22:37,064 --> 00:22:39,149 would have been considered artists today. 385 00:22:40,108 --> 00:22:43,320 When Darwin went in 1831 on the HMS Beagle, 386 00:22:43,612 --> 00:22:46,156 he brought with him a book of color nomenclatures. 387 00:22:47,741 --> 00:22:50,077 [Neri] All great designs were myths, right? 388 00:22:50,786 --> 00:22:54,873 Da Vinci's flying machine is an expression of the myth of Icarus. 389 00:22:55,749 --> 00:22:58,502 Prometheus and the liver being devoured 390 00:22:58,585 --> 00:23:01,630 was this myth of organ regeneration. 391 00:23:01,797 --> 00:23:03,632 So, in a way, through their mythologies, 392 00:23:03,715 --> 00:23:06,093 they were also expressing scientific knowledge. 393 00:23:10,972 --> 00:23:13,850 So, these look like anatomical drawings, 394 00:23:13,934 --> 00:23:16,561 scientific, anatomical drawings, 395 00:23:16,645 --> 00:23:19,022 that are entirely made of glass, 396 00:23:19,231 --> 00:23:21,316 created in the late 1880s 397 00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:25,445 by a father and son that have dedicated their life 398 00:23:25,529 --> 00:23:27,114 to the art of glass. 399 00:23:28,573 --> 00:23:32,285 They produced 4,000 glass models 400 00:23:32,369 --> 00:23:34,871 depicting 780 species. 401 00:23:36,206 --> 00:23:38,375 It's... it's still unclear, 402 00:23:38,834 --> 00:23:40,752 to artists and scientists alike, 403 00:23:40,836 --> 00:23:44,548 how they managed to arrive at that granularity. 404 00:23:45,674 --> 00:23:49,344 And many have tried to replicate this art form and have failed. 405 00:23:49,553 --> 00:23:50,637 It's a mystery. 406 00:23:51,763 --> 00:23:54,057 So, we came here to study the glass 407 00:23:54,141 --> 00:23:56,685 and to better understand how this... 408 00:23:57,352 --> 00:23:59,146 how this resolution was achieved. 409 00:24:05,569 --> 00:24:08,405 I don't know that we've ever taken on a project 410 00:24:08,697 --> 00:24:11,283 that did not involve the creation of a new technology. 411 00:24:13,076 --> 00:24:15,495 Glass, that's an ancient material. 412 00:24:15,579 --> 00:24:19,040 It's been formed, it's been blown, it's been pressed, 413 00:24:19,124 --> 00:24:20,500 but it hasn't been printed. 414 00:24:21,209 --> 00:24:25,088 So, we wanted to create the first optically transparent glass printer. 415 00:24:36,141 --> 00:24:36,975 [man 1] Wow. 416 00:24:37,058 --> 00:24:38,602 -[man 2] Stop here. -[man 1] Okay. 417 00:24:38,685 --> 00:24:40,395 [man 3] It's a shock, 'cause you can't get... 418 00:24:40,479 --> 00:24:43,398 -It's sort of in a runaway mode right now. -[woman] Yeah. 419 00:24:43,482 --> 00:24:45,484 [Nicholas] Printing glass sounds simple, 420 00:24:45,901 --> 00:24:49,362 but to do it, you have to do lots of things that are very complicated. 421 00:24:49,821 --> 00:24:51,364 [Joi] She'll design a new mathematics 422 00:24:51,448 --> 00:24:53,742 for the flow of glass coming out of the nozzle, 423 00:24:53,825 --> 00:24:55,452 and then she'll work with them 424 00:24:55,535 --> 00:24:57,496 on exactly how they need to organize this thing 425 00:24:57,579 --> 00:25:00,790 to make this beautiful, but also structurally stable. 426 00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:07,672 [man 1] Oh, it's moving in an unexpected way. 427 00:25:07,756 --> 00:25:10,842 [man 2] Quickly dropping the temperature. Not sure that's gonna do it. 428 00:25:17,432 --> 00:25:20,143 [Neri] The first printer was rather primitive. 429 00:25:20,393 --> 00:25:24,564 Glass II allowed us to incorporate a rotary unit 430 00:25:24,648 --> 00:25:29,653 to orient the nozzle according to the force-feed direction, 431 00:25:29,736 --> 00:25:31,821 a little bit like a calligraphy pen. 432 00:25:33,573 --> 00:25:36,034 It's a much more sophisticated system 433 00:25:36,117 --> 00:25:41,248 that allowed us to print three three-meter columns for Milan Design Week. 434 00:25:51,967 --> 00:25:54,427 [Joi] There are probably some skeptics about... 435 00:25:55,470 --> 00:25:57,347 "And how does this help me feed my family? 436 00:25:57,430 --> 00:26:00,141 How does this help my company produce better products?" 437 00:26:01,059 --> 00:26:04,771 You don't get to the idea of having a smartphone with no buttons 438 00:26:04,854 --> 00:26:05,939 by A/B testing. 439 00:26:06,022 --> 00:26:07,941 You get that through being inspired 440 00:26:08,024 --> 00:26:10,193 and... and coming up with something completely different. 441 00:26:11,736 --> 00:26:12,862 [Nicholas] Imagine... 442 00:26:13,530 --> 00:26:15,740 a world that is not composed of parts. 443 00:26:15,824 --> 00:26:17,200 Something very complex, 444 00:26:17,284 --> 00:26:20,036 something like your camera could grow from a seed. 445 00:26:21,621 --> 00:26:23,039 That's preposterous. 446 00:26:24,499 --> 00:26:28,169 But even if it's so preposterous that it doesn't happen that way 447 00:26:28,253 --> 00:26:30,589 that you plant a seed and a camera comes out, 448 00:26:30,672 --> 00:26:32,257 it almost doesn't matter 449 00:26:32,340 --> 00:26:36,511 if there's this enormous richness of ideas and projects 450 00:26:36,595 --> 00:26:39,097 and discoveries along the way. 451 00:26:39,472 --> 00:26:41,224 [Neri] We often find ourselves 452 00:26:41,308 --> 00:26:44,936 creating solutions for problems we don't yet know exist. 453 00:26:45,020 --> 00:26:47,522 Rather than problem solve, we problem seek. 454 00:26:48,315 --> 00:26:50,150 [Moshe] The payoff is 455 00:26:50,233 --> 00:26:52,110 things that affect our lives day to day. 456 00:26:53,528 --> 00:26:57,991 [Neri] The advantage of printing glass is that you can create optical lenses 457 00:26:58,408 --> 00:27:01,453 and control how solar energy 458 00:27:01,828 --> 00:27:04,873 is processed through the skin of the building. 459 00:27:05,498 --> 00:27:08,043 And that's the one technology that takes us now, finally, 460 00:27:08,126 --> 00:27:10,337 to the architectural scale, for real. 461 00:27:11,796 --> 00:27:14,924 We can get to build a glass-printed skyscraper. 462 00:27:22,265 --> 00:27:24,017 We work on technology 463 00:27:24,100 --> 00:27:27,103 that is so intimately connected with the natural environment, 464 00:27:27,312 --> 00:27:30,273 but we end up spending most of our time at the lab. 465 00:27:32,317 --> 00:27:34,903 And so, I often find myself 466 00:27:35,153 --> 00:27:38,114 torn between my life as a lab rat 467 00:27:38,198 --> 00:27:41,576 and being out there in nature and just breathing it all in. 468 00:28:05,225 --> 00:28:09,062 This is Walden Pond, the very same place that Thoreau lived 469 00:28:09,312 --> 00:28:10,480 and wrote about. 470 00:28:19,989 --> 00:28:22,826 There was a time when I used to come here every morning. 471 00:28:27,539 --> 00:28:30,375 You think design is the practice of letting go... 472 00:28:31,459 --> 00:28:35,255 in a similar way in which Thoreau and the Transcendentalists 473 00:28:35,338 --> 00:28:38,466 let go of all that is unnecessary. 474 00:28:44,389 --> 00:28:45,223 Here, 475 00:28:45,473 --> 00:28:48,810 it's a pocket of nature surrounded by the city. 476 00:28:50,478 --> 00:28:52,856 When you close your eyes... 477 00:28:52,939 --> 00:28:55,233 -[distant plane engine rumbling] -[train chugging] 478 00:28:56,901 --> 00:29:00,155 ...you can hear the plane, you can hear the cars, you can hear the train, 479 00:29:00,238 --> 00:29:01,698 you're literally in the city. 480 00:29:02,782 --> 00:29:04,617 It's almost like an inverted lab. 481 00:29:08,705 --> 00:29:11,750 There's something that reminds me of Haifa, that reminds me of home. 482 00:29:16,296 --> 00:29:19,215 There are different ways of communicating with nature. 483 00:29:19,799 --> 00:29:22,051 There's a connection that happens in Walden Pond, 484 00:29:22,135 --> 00:29:24,471 and there's a connection that happens in our wet lab. 485 00:29:28,683 --> 00:29:30,477 Here, it's just like being in the garden. 486 00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:33,271 It is a garden. It's just a different kind of garden. 487 00:29:35,940 --> 00:29:36,858 I love it. 488 00:29:40,653 --> 00:29:43,656 Our next Aguahoja deadline is coming up 489 00:29:43,740 --> 00:29:45,575 when we're installing the next structure 490 00:29:45,658 --> 00:29:47,744 at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York City. 491 00:29:47,827 --> 00:29:49,579 -[man] What is that? -[Josh] It's, uh, casein, 492 00:29:49,662 --> 00:29:50,830 a kind of milk protein. 493 00:29:51,831 --> 00:29:53,208 This is casein? 494 00:29:53,666 --> 00:29:55,251 -Yeah. -[Neri] Milkshake. 495 00:29:55,543 --> 00:29:58,338 That's crazy. Did you test it? Did you load test it? 496 00:29:58,630 --> 00:29:59,798 -[Josh] Yeah. -How does it be-- 497 00:29:59,881 --> 00:30:01,716 [Josh] Really well. It's... it's, uh... 498 00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:04,427 a few times stronger than the photopolymer we use. 499 00:30:04,552 --> 00:30:07,096 [Neri] In the current research around Aguahoja, 500 00:30:07,180 --> 00:30:10,183 we're looking into the design of decay. 501 00:30:10,391 --> 00:30:13,812 Casein is a milk protein and is biodegradable, 502 00:30:13,895 --> 00:30:15,688 and yet as hard as concrete. 503 00:30:15,772 --> 00:30:18,149 I think we're really, like, into the idea 504 00:30:18,233 --> 00:30:20,443 that the whole thing can decay and go back to nature. 505 00:30:20,777 --> 00:30:22,862 Maybe this combination would work 506 00:30:22,946 --> 00:30:25,490 for something that's structurally sound. 507 00:30:26,074 --> 00:30:29,285 Everyone who picked it up thought this was plastic. No, it's not. 508 00:30:29,702 --> 00:30:33,832 Anything made of plastic today can be replaced with those biopolymers. 509 00:30:34,207 --> 00:30:36,709 We should think about the bigger narrative 510 00:30:36,793 --> 00:30:41,089 and how to think about the decay in... in... in... in a meaningful way. 511 00:30:42,507 --> 00:30:46,010 I loved the biological sciences, 512 00:30:46,427 --> 00:30:50,473 and I was certain I was going to become a surgeon. 513 00:30:51,474 --> 00:30:53,017 It just made sense. 514 00:30:55,687 --> 00:31:00,108 I remember the first dissection session we had in anatomy. 515 00:31:01,526 --> 00:31:03,027 I remember always... 516 00:31:03,695 --> 00:31:06,573 doing something I was never allowed to do. That is... 517 00:31:06,906 --> 00:31:09,200 going behind the body and taking a look at the face 518 00:31:09,284 --> 00:31:13,746 of this incredible and wonderful creature that gave their body to science. 519 00:31:16,332 --> 00:31:19,961 And saying a little prayer for that person and for science. 520 00:31:22,547 --> 00:31:24,382 Then, my grandmother passed away, 521 00:31:24,465 --> 00:31:27,176 and that day, I decided to switch to architecture. 522 00:31:29,012 --> 00:31:30,972 It just felt meaningless 523 00:31:31,222 --> 00:31:34,142 to keep on going at that point without her. 524 00:31:34,934 --> 00:31:38,980 I felt I... I... I needed to keep that legacy of the garden going. 525 00:31:41,441 --> 00:31:44,277 At architecture school, there were rules and guidelines 526 00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:45,945 that every architect is taught. 527 00:31:46,070 --> 00:31:48,531 But these are all interpretations of... 528 00:31:49,073 --> 00:31:53,786 our levels of controlling nature and controlling the natural environment. 529 00:31:56,247 --> 00:32:01,711 Design, whose purpose is to beautify and prettify the world, will not survive. 530 00:32:05,173 --> 00:32:07,926 It is a delusion that we're alone in this world. 531 00:32:08,301 --> 00:32:12,889 That the design practice of the future should have zero clients. 532 00:32:13,765 --> 00:32:16,059 Nature should be the single client. 533 00:32:17,810 --> 00:32:20,438 I mean, Neri's ambitious, no question about it. 534 00:32:21,481 --> 00:32:23,983 [man] You don't win awards if you do what people tell you to do. 535 00:32:24,067 --> 00:32:26,986 You win by questioning authority and thinking for yourself. 536 00:32:30,073 --> 00:32:32,075 [Neri] An engineer said to me, 537 00:32:32,367 --> 00:32:33,868 "You want to build, no? 538 00:32:34,661 --> 00:32:36,245 Biology will take you nowhere." 539 00:32:41,834 --> 00:32:42,710 [beeps] 540 00:32:50,176 --> 00:32:52,053 [speaking indistinctly in Hebrew] 541 00:32:57,642 --> 00:33:00,478 -[in English] Hi! how are you? -[Neri responds in Hebrew] 542 00:33:00,561 --> 00:33:01,854 Come and sit down. 543 00:33:02,522 --> 00:33:07,151 [Neri] My parents were and are both great architects. 544 00:33:08,403 --> 00:33:12,031 There was always a supply of inspiration. 545 00:33:12,407 --> 00:33:14,492 [Robert] This was a fish made of a shoe, 546 00:33:15,034 --> 00:33:17,036 which I think kind of says 547 00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:20,039 everything about Neri's... Neri herself. 548 00:33:20,498 --> 00:33:23,459 This is a reprint of the New York Times article, 549 00:33:23,543 --> 00:33:25,837 and what they did was they... 550 00:33:27,005 --> 00:33:32,010 put Neri on the cover of the Art and Culture magazine, 551 00:33:32,093 --> 00:33:33,845 and then, on the inside, 552 00:33:33,928 --> 00:33:37,807 they used that quotation, “The Leonardo da Vinci of today.” 553 00:33:37,890 --> 00:33:39,100 So embarrassing. 554 00:33:41,352 --> 00:33:45,815 Self-confidence provided her with the ability to fly, you know? 555 00:33:45,898 --> 00:33:48,067 She flew. She's flying now. 556 00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:52,822 [speaking Hebrew] 557 00:33:53,865 --> 00:33:56,367 [Neri] I left Israel to grow 558 00:33:56,701 --> 00:33:59,162 and seek my identity. 559 00:33:59,829 --> 00:34:01,622 [Neri squeals excitedly] 560 00:34:01,706 --> 00:34:02,665 [laughs] 561 00:34:02,915 --> 00:34:06,044 [speaking Hebrew] 562 00:34:06,544 --> 00:34:09,672 I've always wanted to have children, never had the opportunity. 563 00:34:10,798 --> 00:34:12,341 I hope I will someday. 564 00:34:14,343 --> 00:34:18,139 Many of my friends have told me that it's impossible, 565 00:34:18,723 --> 00:34:20,683 that I can't do it all. 566 00:34:23,644 --> 00:34:25,188 I still think it's possible. 567 00:34:34,614 --> 00:34:35,740 As I've grown, 568 00:34:36,699 --> 00:34:40,078 and I move forward into more recent work, 569 00:34:40,828 --> 00:34:42,455 we're getting closer to nature. 570 00:34:42,538 --> 00:34:45,833 The arc begins with nature-inspired design 571 00:34:46,667 --> 00:34:49,504 and ends with design-inspired nature. 572 00:34:52,006 --> 00:34:53,966 -[classical music plays] -[bees buzzing] 573 00:35:01,766 --> 00:35:02,934 I.. I love bees. 574 00:35:04,727 --> 00:35:06,938 Yeah, I like bees. I raised bees in my youth. 575 00:35:12,902 --> 00:35:14,779 She's... she's into this, the bees. 576 00:35:17,406 --> 00:35:18,866 They are nature's architects. 577 00:35:23,955 --> 00:35:26,874 [Sunanda] Initially, we were looking at swarm construction because... 578 00:35:27,208 --> 00:35:29,961 we can either build really big robots to make really big things, 579 00:35:30,044 --> 00:35:32,547 or you can have multiple small robots that are working together. 580 00:35:33,965 --> 00:35:37,093 [Neri] You can't print a structure on Mars with a single robot. 581 00:35:37,176 --> 00:35:40,388 You have to have a bunch of robots that interact. 582 00:35:42,598 --> 00:35:45,059 [Sunanda] So, that's when we started to get interested in bees. 583 00:35:46,227 --> 00:35:50,064 From bees, we can learn so much about social interaction. 584 00:35:50,439 --> 00:35:54,235 But in Massachusetts, they're pretty active during the summer. 585 00:35:54,318 --> 00:35:57,113 And then, afterwards, it really goes downhill, 586 00:35:57,196 --> 00:35:58,489 because then it gets cold, 587 00:35:58,573 --> 00:36:00,658 and when the frost starts to appear, that's it. 588 00:36:02,076 --> 00:36:04,871 [Neri] One experiment often leads to another. 589 00:36:05,413 --> 00:36:08,249 [Sunanda] And it ended up trying to figure out can we make an indoor space 590 00:36:08,332 --> 00:36:11,335 where we trick them into thinking that it's spring all year round, 591 00:36:11,419 --> 00:36:13,588 so we have a perpetual spring environment. 592 00:36:13,963 --> 00:36:16,507 [Neri] We rented a space outside of the Media Lab. 593 00:36:17,633 --> 00:36:20,887 [Sunanda] We started with a warehouse, and then we built it up. 594 00:36:27,518 --> 00:36:30,646 [Neri] The magical formula is knowing 595 00:36:31,022 --> 00:36:32,523 when to say why, 596 00:36:32,607 --> 00:36:35,318 and with the same breath, ask why not. 597 00:36:37,195 --> 00:36:38,571 So, the space requires 598 00:36:38,905 --> 00:36:42,742 knowing exactly what kind of thermal control you need, and air, 599 00:36:42,825 --> 00:36:44,368 and how can you mimic artificial light 600 00:36:44,452 --> 00:36:46,996 to trick the bees into thinking that it's spring. 601 00:36:49,457 --> 00:36:52,585 The place that we built was really nice because it was always, like, 70 degrees 602 00:36:52,668 --> 00:36:53,753 and very humid. 603 00:36:55,338 --> 00:36:57,632 But the sound of about a million bees 604 00:36:58,257 --> 00:37:00,760 over a winter was eerie. 605 00:37:00,843 --> 00:37:02,178 [loud buzzing] 606 00:37:07,725 --> 00:37:10,019 The next step is a robotic queen 607 00:37:10,102 --> 00:37:11,604 that can spit pheromones 608 00:37:11,938 --> 00:37:14,941 and inform a highly social community 609 00:37:15,024 --> 00:37:16,734 how to place their comb 610 00:37:17,068 --> 00:37:19,320 and what quality of honey to produce, 611 00:37:19,695 --> 00:37:23,282 but keep them alive, keep them healthy, keep them replenished or planted. 612 00:37:23,824 --> 00:37:25,618 I'm still looking for the queen. 613 00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:30,873 The queen is bigger, 614 00:37:31,666 --> 00:37:33,292 slightly lighter... 615 00:37:35,503 --> 00:37:37,797 and different odor. 616 00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:39,131 So, she... 617 00:37:39,507 --> 00:37:40,925 If we could smell, 618 00:37:41,759 --> 00:37:44,387 spits out those pheromones, controlling the entire hive. 619 00:37:53,396 --> 00:37:57,817 You have to question yourself in order to create. 620 00:37:59,193 --> 00:38:03,406 And, actually, when you say, "I wonder," the source of the word is doubt. 621 00:38:05,658 --> 00:38:07,618 I can't design without doubt. 622 00:38:19,964 --> 00:38:22,883 My father said, "When you create, 623 00:38:22,967 --> 00:38:26,053 you must always feel a little bit uncomfortable. 624 00:38:27,930 --> 00:38:30,016 And if you're feeling uncomfortable... 625 00:38:31,309 --> 00:38:32,435 and alone, 626 00:38:32,977 --> 00:38:34,937 you know you're doing something right." 627 00:38:43,779 --> 00:38:45,906 That stayed with me. 628 00:38:48,075 --> 00:38:51,746 I can't tell you, in the beginning, how much criticism 629 00:38:51,829 --> 00:38:55,291 and how much mocking, even, we had to sustain to... 630 00:38:55,624 --> 00:38:57,001 to be where we are. 631 00:38:57,960 --> 00:38:59,962 [Sunanda] Why is this practical? Why is this useful? 632 00:39:00,046 --> 00:39:01,630 Why does it deserve funding? 633 00:39:01,714 --> 00:39:04,300 Why is design worth it? Why is art worth it? 634 00:39:05,509 --> 00:39:10,890 [Neri] I know that from the outside, it looks so precious and so elegant, 635 00:39:10,973 --> 00:39:12,850 and it's none of these things. 636 00:39:12,933 --> 00:39:16,437 It's dirty, and it's hard, and it's messy, 637 00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:20,691 and it takes a whole lot of confidence to push against the grain. 638 00:39:23,778 --> 00:39:26,947 It's always very quiet inside the eye of the storm. 639 00:39:30,618 --> 00:39:33,954 But along with the loneliness, there's also serenity. 640 00:39:44,632 --> 00:39:48,177 And one of my big goals is to protect the group 641 00:39:48,803 --> 00:39:51,263 and to keep them inside the eye of the storm. 642 00:39:58,771 --> 00:40:02,191 [Nic] The issue is that it... it often does not adhere to the pectin, 643 00:40:02,274 --> 00:40:03,442 so it'll... it'll peel away. 644 00:40:03,526 --> 00:40:06,153 And you can see that, in some of the pieces that are on my desk, 645 00:40:06,237 --> 00:40:08,572 there are areas that just tear away eventually. 646 00:40:08,656 --> 00:40:10,366 [Neri] Mm-hmm. Yeah. 647 00:40:10,449 --> 00:40:12,076 [Nic] Right now, this feels like a pattern. 648 00:40:12,159 --> 00:40:13,619 [Neri] Yeah. This is perfect, though. 649 00:40:13,702 --> 00:40:16,372 -This is so perfect. Yeah. -[Nic] This is what we need to shoot for. 650 00:40:16,455 --> 00:40:17,957 [Neri] That's very, very cool. 651 00:40:19,291 --> 00:40:21,836 I'm excited. I'm so, so excited. 652 00:40:22,169 --> 00:40:26,173 We started Aguahoja around 2012 653 00:40:26,590 --> 00:40:30,719 with samples that were as large as a sand grain. 654 00:40:30,803 --> 00:40:32,680 And we grew the platform 655 00:40:32,763 --> 00:40:35,307 until we generated this five-meter structure. 656 00:40:37,643 --> 00:40:42,148 And now, we're moving to an even more sophisticated expression 657 00:40:42,231 --> 00:40:44,608 that enters the... the molecular scale. 658 00:40:47,862 --> 00:40:51,365 I mean, I grew up with this vision of nature 659 00:40:51,449 --> 00:40:54,618 as the untouched mother. 660 00:40:55,202 --> 00:40:56,120 But now, 661 00:40:56,620 --> 00:40:57,746 it has become our... 662 00:40:58,539 --> 00:40:59,498 our child. 663 00:41:00,749 --> 00:41:03,127 And so, it is our job and our responsibility 664 00:41:03,210 --> 00:41:04,920 to mother the natural world. 665 00:41:10,843 --> 00:41:14,388 It's interesting because the word "nature" is to give birth. 666 00:41:15,764 --> 00:41:17,850 I've been doing a lot of mothering, too. 667 00:41:18,767 --> 00:41:21,020 The projects, the organisms, 668 00:41:21,103 --> 00:41:23,022 the students, the team. 669 00:41:24,273 --> 00:41:25,107 My... 670 00:41:26,108 --> 00:41:26,942 family. 671 00:41:29,445 --> 00:41:30,488 And now, uh... 672 00:41:31,739 --> 00:41:32,573 my belly. 673 00:41:32,656 --> 00:41:33,532 [laughs] 674 00:41:33,949 --> 00:41:34,992 I am pregnant. 675 00:41:44,251 --> 00:41:46,629 [Nicholas] I think there's another several rounds 676 00:41:46,712 --> 00:41:49,006 of metamorphosis that she'll go through. 677 00:41:49,507 --> 00:41:52,968 She's doing her own work, and showing it, and getting it out into the world. 678 00:41:53,052 --> 00:41:54,720 I think she'll start to get a lot of people 679 00:41:54,803 --> 00:41:56,847 who can bring her sensibility into their disciplines. 680 00:41:57,389 --> 00:41:58,891 There's much more to come. 681 00:42:01,435 --> 00:42:03,020 [Moshe] I think in 20 years, 682 00:42:03,270 --> 00:42:07,441 we'll be doing things, or wearing things, or using things 683 00:42:07,816 --> 00:42:11,779 that have affected our lives because of that thinking. 684 00:42:12,404 --> 00:42:14,573 That we will see the tangible payoff. 685 00:42:17,326 --> 00:42:19,453 I love showing this is possible. 686 00:42:23,624 --> 00:42:28,587 Imagine someone with an early training in medicine, 687 00:42:29,797 --> 00:42:32,174 with a passion for architecture, 688 00:42:32,258 --> 00:42:35,553 who brings together the world of design... 689 00:42:36,178 --> 00:42:37,721 and the world of nature 690 00:42:38,597 --> 00:42:40,933 to international acclaim. 691 00:42:42,393 --> 00:42:44,353 Imagine a leader 692 00:42:44,937 --> 00:42:48,774 in education and research in MIT, 693 00:42:49,858 --> 00:42:53,487 who inspires future generations still to come. 694 00:42:53,696 --> 00:42:58,659 Imagine somebody whose style and professionalism 695 00:42:59,410 --> 00:43:00,661 is a role model. 696 00:43:02,037 --> 00:43:03,706 All of those qualities, 697 00:43:04,206 --> 00:43:05,583 and more between, 698 00:43:06,041 --> 00:43:07,293 is Neri Oxman. 699 00:43:07,376 --> 00:43:08,627 [applause] 700 00:43:10,588 --> 00:43:13,215 [Neri] The famous Einstein saying, which I love, 701 00:43:13,507 --> 00:43:15,426 "There are two ways to live your life. 702 00:43:16,218 --> 00:43:19,638 One as if nothing is a miracle. 703 00:43:21,390 --> 00:43:24,476 And the other is as if everything is a miracle." 704 00:43:27,396 --> 00:43:28,564 And that's who I am.