Mind Your Step 005 : OXMAN
Growing Footwear: project Oᵒ
In conversation with Neri Oxman
Edited by John Chen
Imagine a reality where shoes don’t just return to Earth at the end of their lifecycle but are actually designed to nourish it — seamlessly blending utility and consumption. Where our connection to the environment is shaped, quite literally by what we wear on our feet. Welcome to the world of OXMAN, a pioneering design studio, atelier and laboratory that is working alongside Nature to retool the blueprint for humanity’s future. At the helm is Neri Oxman, best known for her work that blends material ecology, computational design and bio-based co-fabrication.
Stepping into their New York studio, we were graciously invited to explore project Oᵒ (pronounced "O-Zero") — a new platform poised to revolutionise the footwear and textile industry from the ground up. Neri and her team of bio-avengers are crafting a bold new narrative for product creation. Oᵒ is not just a concept; it’s a glimpse into a future where producing shoes actively heals the planet. This ambitious initiative harmonises the artistry of bio-design, the precision of mono-material engineering, the efficiency of industrial manufacturing, and the promise of circularity—all while maintaining a sharp focus on real-world commercial viability. Few innovations have the power to stop us in our tracks, but this one has truly captured our attention.
We sat down with Neri to better understand her vision for project Oᵒ, her personal relationship with footwear and what type of impact she hopes to make with the introduction of this platform…
CONCEPT(K) : First of all, what is your personal relationship with footwear like? Do you have any early memories of footwear or wearable products?
NERI : Growing up we used to walk around wearing biblical sandals. I vividly recall handpicking pine nuts as conifer needles found their way into my sandals. Sandals and pine needles, a first memory. When I was about 6 years old, we relocated as a family to the Netherlands for one year and I recall being gifted a pair of red wooden clogs by my parents. I kept them for many years, and when I discovered that klomps are just as cherished as windmills and tulips and cheese, I valued them even more. Those little red wooden clogs were obviously uncomfortable for running, even walking, but I kept them because to me they were bigger than shoes. They were markers of national identity, tropes of belonging.
“The symbiotic relationship between Nature and Machine is very much the story of our species. At our lab we aim to take this symbiotic relationship to the extreme, working towards the singularity of Nature and culture, of biology and technology. Rather than ‘controlling’ Nature, it is the loss of control that we are after.”
Neri OXMAN
CONCEPT(K) : How would you describe the intention of project Oᵒ?
NERI : Reincarnation. Imagine a world where most of our disposable products can come from and return to Nature. We’re not there yet but that’s the future we’d like to create. A future where products can grow from and reincarnate into plant matter. In this image of the future, most disposable products are 100% biodegradable, have 0% microplastics and consume 0% of our landfills. This intention, “One place, one material, one biome” is the kernel of Oᵒ’s mission. The label itself—zero to the power of zero—stands for unity: the first natural number, a numeral, a glyph, a prime number, an expression of union. It also expresses the singular nature of our product’s physical embodiment: one bacterial type, one material class, one robotic process, one location, one transformation, one genetic code. In this future, products may grow as plants, sold as feedstock, consumed as produce, and biodegrade as soil biotics.
CONCEPT(K) : PHA’s are an incredible material, a singular bio-degradable solution which can adapt to pre-existing industrial manufacturing methods. Why do you think this material has not been more widely adopted by mass-production in wearables up until this point? And where do you see the potential?
NERI : Working with PHAs for the past couple of years has unlocked new potential for this material class, namely making yarn. This newfound capability elevates PHAs from being used to produce food containers and packaging to being deployed across textile applications including shoes. At our lab, we can transform fibers into knits utilizing CNC knitting, an industrially scaled textile fabrication method that has existed for decades.
Getting there was a challenge because industrial fabrication processes in textiles are frequently aggressive to fibers, requiring resistance to snapping and stretching. Maintaining adequate tenacity and elasticity such that PHA fibers can be subject to textile manufacturing processes required intensive research and development.
We can extrude PHA in long continuous fiber filaments, as long as tens of thousands of meters and as small as 30 microns in diameter, with robust mechanical performance across a limited cross-sectional area. In addition to pre-production runs of biodegradable PHA-based mono- and multi-filament fibers, we have achieved successful production runs of 100% PHA fibers. The next challenge is scaling in parallel to further material development. At the cutting edge of material science, microbiology, and engineering, our team is currently developing mono- and multi-filament fibers using biologically produced PHAs, with a focus on increasing tensile strength to rival that of commercial synthetic fibers.
I see significant potential for this material as textile, since it offers a tunable platform for achieving a wide array of properties within a single material class, resulting in products that can fully degrade in ambient conditions, that have 0% microplastics and that consume 0% of our landfills while delivering on biologically derived property gradients such as strength, elasticity, color, and even smell.
CONCEPT(K) : Creating a symbiotic relationship between nature and machine through construction is both poetic and highly pragmatic. What led you to combining these two seemingly juxtaposed methods of creation?
NERI : The symbiotic relationship between Nature and Machine is very much the story of our species. At our lab we aim to take this symbiotic relationship to the extreme, working towards the singularity of Nature and culture, of biology and technology. Rather than ‘controlling’ Nature, it is the loss of control that we are after. Said differently, we are after the relinquishment of power over Nature and the all too ambitious yearning for ‘enabling’ the natural world to employ non-natural ‘tools.’ Imagine a world in which a robot can compute the feedstock and relevant energy budget for any given shoe, according to environmental conditions and needs, then scan a foot and print a bio-based shoe. Imagine a shoe that alters its biodegradation rate as a function of soil composition. Imagine bacterial PHAs embedded with DNA ‘codes’ enabling end-of-life traceability providing the user with a lineage of the materials from which their shoes were made. Plant-based PHA become a shoe, the shoe becomes a plant, the plant yields new and fresh soil bacteria. Samsara.
CONCEPT(K) : We always appreciate product where the aesthetic is formed as a direct derivative of the construction method. In these first prototypes, you have a knitted base with a webbed, cage-like structure. How would you describe the form language we can expect from the project Oᵒ range?
NERI : I am with you. Aesthetics is agency. It is the level and quality of procedural rigor—be it material processability (e.g. to tune the chemical properties), construction (e.g. printing, foaming, spinning, etc.), or feature processability (e.g. pigment and smell production)—that gives rise to agency along with an ‘aesthetic language’ as a result. In Oᵒ, we aimed for design agency across materiality and constructability as both are tied to start and end-of-life programmability. For example, bio-based pigmentation can be a function of textile density and thickness, and textile density and thickness will determine biodegradation rates. Hence, color can express the biodegradation logic inherent in the product.
Regarding the webbed, cage-like structures, we aimed to find synergy between the ‘function-language’ of the knitted textiles and that of the 3D printed structures. Since no adhesives are used in our current PHA shoe prototypes, the printed patterns fuse with the knitted textiles, bonding the two across functional trajectories informed by human movement. In this way the shoes’ materiality, construction and functional behavior are all connected.
For 3D printing, we use a method called fused deposition modeling (FDM), wherein an extruder melts PHA pellets into malleable fluid, a filament. At the end of a robotic arm is a last in the shape of a human foot. In a programmed ‘dance,’ these components sequentially perform additive manufacturing on top of a sock-like textile. We call the 3D printed layer our ‘exoskeleton,’ as the PHA copolymers provide material toughness, while the designed toolpath of the continuous line provides mobility and flexibility. This programmed fabrication is what we call ‘toolpathing,’ or the output of computational design processes for the robotic arm to enact. The toolpath can be quickly iterated, closing the gap between design and manufacturing to unify them as one. The resulting form language expresses the linear logic of a continuous line element, curving and curling around the last, akin to the silkworm spinning its cocoon as it undergoes metamorphosis.
CONCEPT(K) : It’s refreshing to see someone create their own system of manufacturing from the ground up, the way you have with the Oᵒ platform. What have been some of the advantages and disadvantages of setting this up?
NERI : Producing and processing PHA textiles required that we design, develop, and deploy our very own fully automated and highly compact robotic system that enables end-to-end digital fabrication of bio-based consumer goods, displacing the traditional assembly line. One clear advantage has been the ability to shrink the factory floor footprint to 1.5 m² (for a single robot) utilizing locally sourced materials.
Another major advantage is the ability to use a minimum number of materials (a single material class, in fact) while working towards maximum versatility across physical properties, processability, and functionality. More specifically, in developing novel fabrication methods for custom PHA blends, including melt spinning industry-grade fibers, fused deposition modeling of 3D printed filaments, melt blowing nonwoven textiles, and molding foams; we are leveraging PHA’s tunability and in turn the creation of a wide range of mechanical properties. While knitting PHAs is indeed novel; since PHA is a thermoplastic, it can easily be integrated into existing industrial processes such as industrial knitting, fused deposition modeling, multifilament, textile extrusion, melt-blown, spun, dip, weld and pressing. In this respect, another advantage for creating our own manufacturing process allows us to innovate across every dimension of processing without sacrificing scale, since thermoplastics are a ‘known quantity’ and can be processed and scaled in a ‘plug-and-play’ manner.
Finally, operating outside of the conservative shoe and textile industries, developing an entirely new way of making shoes and textiles, deploying a biomaterial, has enabled us to arrive at unexpected solutions. For example, because we were set to work with a single material class, we had to come up with novel ways to adhere the knitted and printed layers to each other through controlled heating and cooling.
CONCEPT(K) : As a new entity entering the footwear world, you are in the unique position to carefully consider the entire lifecycle of your product system. What does the commercialization of the Oᵒ project look like?
NERI : The commercialization of Oᵒ intersects consumer goods with farming, luxury with energy-consciousness, and robotics with soil microbiology. This product is really about the fusing of commercial practices with environmental activism. The challenges are unique in that this project exists outside of the typical commercial wisdoms of shoes and textiles. Some have compared Oᵒ to the ‘Tesla of shoes’ making the argument that completely out-of-the-box solutions can out-innovate traditional manufacturing practices.
Each dimension of novelty in this project requires a ‘novelty of dimension’. In other words, we are questioning almost every dimension of traditional shoe manufacturing, pushing ourselves to the limits of what’s possible. For shoes to make a net-positive impact on the environment, let alone achieving net-zero impact, we are working on biodegradation-at-scale for true soil pre/probiotics while scaling the robotics systems used to knit and print the shoes while considering future approaches for in-built fermentation facilities near local shoe stores. As we approach the many challenges associated with commercialization at scale, we are currently focusing on scaling a first batch of textiles and shoes without a fermentation facility, utilizing off the shelf PHAs and our in-house design and robotic fabrication system.
PHA, essentially bacterial fat, represents a high-calorie food source for certain bacteria and fungi. As a carbon rich food source, it can drive increased microbial growth in the soil ecosystems it enters and unbalance the ecosystem. The challenge therefore is to figure out how to manage the carbon contained in the PHA once the material enters, and then leaves the hands of consumers. The circular nature of O°—being produced and consumed by the same class of organisms—points to a future where products biodegrading into microorganisms can nourish the soil from which they originate; a future where products can reincarnate into plant matter, and vice versa.
By cultivating materials from bacteria, as opposed to extracting them from resources like oil, or sourcing them from farmed materials such as wool and cellulose, we unlock the potential for a radically new production paradigm—one that bears more resemblance to growing than to the conventional manufacturing processes. This approach envisions centralizing all components of production into a single site and process. It is possible to conceptualize a single production process, whereby inputs like gaseous nitrogen and CO₂ are transformed, and on the output side, fully designed tunable materials emerge.
One reason for selecting PHAs as the initial material system for O° is their potential to be carbon neutral or carbon negative. Because PHAs can be produced from a broad range of feedstocks, their production system ultimately determines the material’s carbon footprint.
“consider the potential of environmental connectivity. That a shoe can act as soil probiotics and that plants can generate the materials from which an entire shoe is made. By leveraging the biological world and creating products that act as an interface with the environment, we can advance the synergy between things grown and things made.”
Neri OXMAN
CONCEPT(K) : Long-term durability and fast biodegradation, feel like opposites when we think about product. What is it about the processes that your lab has developed that bridge these two ideas?
NERI : While the Oº products you interacted with are indeed biodegradable, they are not more biodegradable than natural polymers such as cotton, silk, hemp etc. We comfortably wear these materials and never worry about them degrading during use. Just like a pair of cotton socks, our Oº products will only biodegrade when discarded and exposed to moisture and bacteria that exists in soil/compost/fresh water/sea water. Unlike cotton, silk and hemp, however, PHAs (polyhydroxyalkanoates) are a class of thermoplastic polymers that are bio-based and biodegradable. Being as they are a class of thermoplastics, these bio-plastic polymers are incredibly versatile in terms of processability, meaning you can 3D-print them, knit them, spin them, etc. In other words, you can express through them a wide range of physical properties, functions, and end-of-life scenarios.
Rather than ‘maximum biodegradability’ our goal is to program timed decomposition into the product. ‘Programmable reincarnation’, with the long-term vision that the degradation of shoes can one day benefit the growth of plants and whole ecosystems.
CONCEPT(K) : It seems like your team is trying to reprogram the way we interact with footwear. How would you see this new relationship working in people's daily lives?
NERI : Consider the evolution of the personal computer. The relationship between the human and the machine was rather transactional pre-Apple. These first machines were popular among computer junkies but had near zero commercial appeal. Things changed under Jobs. In 1984—I was nine years old—his was the first computer to implement a mouse and a graphic user interface, making it truly personal, user friendly and paving the way to ultimate connectivity: the physical network which ultimately enabled the social network.
By analogy, consider the potential of environmental connectivity. That a shoe can act as soil probiotics and that plants can generate the materials from which an entire shoe is made. By leveraging the biological world and creating products that act as an interface with the environment, we can advance the synergy between things grown and things made.
Bio-based products and processes can also inform consumerism. Future consumers will evolve as citizen scientists, selecting not only the shapes, colors and textures of their shoes but also their feedstocks, making choices between food waste and methane and ‘walking the walk’ towards grassroots.
CONCEPT(K) : There is something inherently appealing about hand crafted products, a very real connection to a product which has been made by a human. What are your thoughts around this in relation to project Oᵒ?
NERI : In its most traditional designation craftsmanship is associated with human and manual skills. But consider the digital analogue, digital craft. The notion that computational techniques can evolve and express ‘crafty’ aesthetics and functionality is at the heart of the Oᵒ project. In the same breath, consider the biological analogue, that Nature itself is crafty (for fun, see ‘convergent evolution’ which to me is one dimension of ‘biological craftsmanship’). When you approach craftsmanship beyond human, through digital and biological means, a new design language emerges.
The deeper our understanding of the physical, chemical, and biological properties of our materials, the more agency we can assume over its tunability. The more agency over tunability, the more sophisticated shapes, patterns, and behaviors we can attain. With technical sophistication comes a functional sophistication. Ironically, the farther removed one is from manual skills, the quicker one can attain new interpretations of craftsmanship that are rooted in the tools, techniques and technologies deployed to create the product. In that respect, our leading chemist and textile engineer are both master craftswomen.
CONCEPT(K) : We were quite mesmerised by the packaging solution, a seemingly simple yet beautiful idea when you break it down, could you elaborate on the thinking here behind this?
NERI : If I had to pick one word to describe Oᵒ it would be ‘rebirth’. The philosophical notion that life begets life, that the passing of one living system is the breeding of another, is at the very heart of this project.
The packaging for the shoes embodies this philosophy in material form. Its form language originated as a reflective gesture, referencing our Silk Pavilion (2013), where we designed an architectural canopy with the help of 6,500 silkworms spinning silk atop a robotically woven structure over several weeks. This ‘co-fabrication’ process, building with silkworms, enabled the natural and healthy metamorphosis of the silkworms while spinning the pavilion. This way of producing silk products represents a vast departure from age-old traditions in sericulture wherein the procurement of silk thread comes at the cost of thousands of silkworms per product.
What originated as a nostalgic gesture, continued into the realm of the functional. We realized that this form of packaging—an incredibly thin layer of the very same nonmaterial form which the shoes are made—expresses the nature of the project: a single mono-material, an endless life. Since the packaging is made of the same material, it is also biodegradable and biocompatible. In fact, given its reedy features, the packaging will be the quickest to biodegrade amongst the shoe elements.
The packaging is also reminiscent of the ancient ‘mummification’ process, that of preserving the body upon death, preserving what’s left, delaying natural decay. We loved the ghost-like look and feel of the package and are excited by its functional and philosophical alignment with the values that are at the core of this company.
Neri and the OXMAN team are on a mission to program reincarnation into our footwear, where the objects on our feet become user interfaces in our connectivity with our environment. Safe to say we’re eager to experience these firsthand.
Much more to come in 2025…
- CONCEPT(K)