OXMAN Design and Innovation Laboratory: a space that blends technology and nature

Foster + Partners and Neri Oxman collaborated on the creation of the new OXMAN Design and Innovation Laboratory in New York City, an architectural masterpiece that embodies the intersection of design, technology, and nature. This cutting-edge space, conceived to foster interdisciplinary research and creativity, houses workshops, laboratories, and studios designed to redefine the boundaries of sustainable production and scientific experimentation.

With a bespoke design that highlights natural materials and flexible spaces, the laboratory reflects OXMAN’s pioneering approach, where design, science, and biology merge in constant dialogue with the natural world. This meticulously crafted project stands as a model of innovation and collaboration, ready to inspire new visions for the future of design.

 

Interview with Russell Hales, Senior Partner of Foster + Partners

How does the OXMAN’s new design and innovation lab reflect the firm’s interdisciplinary ethos and commitment to designing in connection with nature? 

"Exploration and creation are at the heart of the design, reflecting the holistic nature of OXMAN’s work. The studio is housed across two levels with ample indoor and outdoor spaces that enhance and complement the company’s interdisciplinary ethos and commitment to designing with, by and for nature. Growth chambers and 3D robotic printing are among the many elements of advanced technology in the lab, the state-of-the art-workshop is one of the most advanced digital fabrication facilities in New York City. The minimalist design allows the incredible works produced by the OXMAN team to be the central focus of the studio".

In this project, you designed a workplace for a design firm together with them. Can you tell us something more about this experience? 

"Despite the project brief not being fully defined on day one, we instantly had a shared vision for the project’s objectives, and the architectural philosophy. We strived to create an adaptable design studio that is at the intersection of a place of study, a workshop, a BLS-2 Lab and a research facility. It was highly important that the OXMAN team wouldn’t be restricted by the scale of the building – the space encourages limitless creativity – from the smallest microorganism to the size of a jet engine. The atmosphere of the space needed to remain tranquil, whilst being heavily serviced and fully operational for a large number of people – the architecture has a technologically-focused, almost ‘monastic’ quality throughout".

How much is important, for a design firm, to have at disposal highly adaptable spaces, which can evolve rapidly to facilitate changing needs? This was critical as the work the Oxman team is so diverse and crossed many filed. 

"Neri wanted to ensure the effective life span of the studio was maximised. This philosophy manifested itself through adaptable floorplates, where we incorporated movable desking with integrated service and lab furniture that is equipped with an innovative plug and play system. This allowed for working positions and densities to expand and contract, without the usual clutter of visible cabling and ductwork. All furniture is bespoke and has been designed in collaboration with Foster + Partners Industrial Design working closely with OXMAN, including flexible workstations and integrated display systems that allow OXMAN team members to reconfigure their working environments with ease".

The project features cutting-edge spaces and aims to enable the most collaborative working scenarios: what role does cutting-edge technology play on one side, and group work on the other, in fostering the R&D process? 

"Facilitating OXMAN’s cross disciplinary approach was a key part of the design process, their projects foster collaboration among specialists from various fields - scientists working alongside engineers and computational designers. It was critical to enable visual connectivity and transparency between different working areas, both horizontally and vertically. Our design is highly versatile in nature, providing a variety of different settings for working, reflection, conversation and independent study. The design and innovation laboratory includes an architectural studio, private meeting spaces, a library, an exhibition gallery, an open kitchen, a garden terrace, and a nursery".

 

>>> Norman Foster will receive the prestigious Andrée Putman Lifetime Achievement Award 2025

 

Interview with Neri Oxman, Founder of Oxman

What were the main architectural and logistical challenges you faced in integrating such diverse disciplines – like computational design, robotics, chemistry, and biology – into a single workspace?

"The logistical challenges were very much a reflection of the intellectual tasks associated with design for cross-pollination. The main challenge associated with setting up a highly interdisciplinary work environment is the need to consolidate spaces with unique character and requirements. Many of our researchers wear different hats within a single day, often a single hour, moving from the Instron machine in the machine shop (used to evaluate the mechanical properties of a given material) to a robotic printer and a knitting machine in the robotic cell, to the Wet Lab and back to the studio. To enable this, we worked with Foster + Partners to create a workspace that was sufficiently partitioned in terms of its operational needs while being amply open to enable flow of people, tools, and ideas.

Some examples of how these challenges were translated and resolved in the building itself included (1) the deployment of acoustical partitions and dampening to maximize structural and acoustical performance, (2) the inclusion of conduits, cables, and plumbed manifolds to enable proper servicing of the lab, and (3) the development of wayfinding signage.

• An acoustical partition system. The relative adjacency of vastly disparate machinery such as SEM (Scanning electron Microscope) microscopy devices and a suite of computer numerical control (CNC) machines required structural reinforcement. The entire south annex—our machine shop on the 10^th floor of the building, facing south—was designed to ‘float’ on a finely tuned array of vibration dampening foam blocks, a horizontal accordion providing structural reinforcement and acoustical partitions, while the rest of the 10th floor has been reinforced with 171 additional pieces of steel, weighing circa 16 tonn.
  
  
• Servicing manifolds. 100 km of high throughput ethernet and fiber optic connections are embedded in the ceilings throughout the office. This enables connectivity between the four main ‘organs’ of the office, namely the architectural atelier on the 9^th floor, the robotic cell on the 10^th floor (northeast), the Wet Lab on the 10^th floor (northwest) and the machine shop (south.) Many of these terminals required millimeter-level precision to align architectural elements with furniture layouts, and each cable path is designed to be upgradable in the future. In terms of services, in total, the building provides 25 different types of electrical, gas, and liquid services to accommodate all categories of machinery needed for each of the four spaces. like a Swiss watch, the walls across the Lab are packed with technology. It’s a supercomputer.  
  
  
• Wayfinding. Subtle architectural elements such as the underlying grid, embedded wayfinding, and "Mindfulness Markers" pointing to our values as a Company, foster a culture of accessibility and collaboration. The markers include, in the Studio: Rigor x Play, Wisdom x Wonder, Brilliance x Humility, Intention x Serendipity. And in the Wet Lab: Technology over Typology, Growth over Assembly, System over Object, Integration over Segregation".

What is the role of the central atrium in the project, both symbolically and functionally?

"The 85 m² atrium is the heart of the Lab. Designed to facilitate efficient movement for over 200 occupants it is a highly dynamic space.  Said in a different way, if the lab were a centrifuge, the atrium would be its rotor,  it is designed to bring people together to activate the space for various functions including gatherings, installations, focused work requiring large scale robots, even dance workshops. It brings much light into the space, and acts as the center of this ‘intellectual centrifuge’. It allows for operational and visual connectivity across the various parts of the Lab connecting the architectural studio and office space on the 9^th floor to the wet lab and robotic cell on the 10^th floor, enabling visual connectivity across all those spaces. 

The many connections circulating the atrium are physically made evident through the mirroring of the Lab’s layout, its consistent design language, synchronized circadian lighting, and other unifying details. It is also a place to showcase our past and present work. Mounting points on the ceiling allow for hanging structures over 7,5 m tall and weighing several tons anywhere in the 645 m³ made available by the atrium. Its design was very much inspired by Cedric Price’s Fun Palace from 1964, embodying an interactive, highly dynamic, and adaptive technological and cultural complex.

The atrium brings in light and nature from the balcony, which, except for a pathway, is filled with 25 different species of plants that are chosen for their ability to attract native pollinators. And yes, we are the proud ‘hosts’ of hummingbirds in Hell’s Kitchen!".

A key feature of this space is the staircase made of folded metal and glass. What was the creative and technical process behind the realization of this element?

"In keeping with a rigorously minimalistic layout, we considered several iterations of the staircase with the aim of ‘floating’ the stair in the spaceIt was engineered with a single stringer, anchored only at the top and bottom. Every part of the staircase, including the interlocking glass panels, functions as a structural element, adding rigidity. The system's precision required custom fitting the glass panels to meet exact field conditions. The staircase weighs 47 quintals".

What was it like working in collaboration with Foster+Partners?

"Collaborating with Foster+Partners was a joy and a privilege. For one, I consider Lord Foster a mentor and an inspiration. I grew up admiring many of the studio’s high-tech designs over the years, especially their environmental aspirations.

Foster+Partners’ team, led by Russell Hales, was a stellar group of vibrant, ambitious, and brilliant designers and the collaboration between us was incredibly synergetic. Through trust and detail orientation we were able to reinvent many of the Lab’s elements we take for granted: a grow room, servicing walls, a robotic cell, a gas charging station. Our commitment to designing and building a ‘machine in the garden’ extended beyond the Wet Lab and can be traced in the design of equipment, furniture, lighting, signage, landscaping, IT, etc.

On the furniture scale, in addition to working with Foster+Partners we collaborated with Benchmark whose team visited 80 forests around the world to find the most ethically sourced materials for the project.

We also collaborated with multi-disciplinary design, consulting and engineering practice FRONT to make magic with glass. The largest pieces of glass in the space are 4,3 m², requiring specialized equipment to transport and install. In the Wet Lab, the edges of the glass are notch-cut in order to sit flush with the frame of the door while still being able to withstand a 90° F temperature difference across the panel without condensation.

The grow rooms, known as ‘Capsules’ are a culmination of this collaboration. Within the Wet Lab, the Capsules serve as core experimental units. The Capsules are advanced environmental growth chambers designed to simulate ecosystems from any point in Earth's history and even project future conditions. Capable of maintaining temperatures between 50-140° F and relative humidity between 20-90%, each Capsule provides precise control over environmental factors. With air circulation reaching up to 25 m³ per minute and ambient CO₂ levels adjustable from ambient to 5,000 ppm, these ‘biodiversity chambers’".

 

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