Since she created her interplanetary wardrobe, known as Wanderers (2014), Neri Oxman has pioneered a future-forward genre of biodesign that marries the curvaceous forms of life with the cool smoothness of digital fabrication. Over time her projects have gotten larger in scale, more ambitious, and have ceded more control to the organisms with which she works—bees, silkworms, fungus, and bioengineered bacteria. Now Neri is working on the scale of the city. What that means for the urban skyline might surprise you.

This February, Neri opened a retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, “Nature x Humanity”. The exhibition includes the latest work from Neri’s lab in New York City, her new home following 16 years as a student and then professor at the MIT Media Lab. 

Biodesigned interviewed Neri about her show, lab, and visions for living architecture. For Part One, we asked a single question. Neri’s response merited its own section.