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Bucky Fuller & Spaceship Earth
Ivorypress Art + Books presents BUCKY FULLER & SPACESHIP EARTH © RIBA Library Photographs Collection BIOGRAPHY OF RICHARD BUCKMINSTER FULLER Born in 1895 into a distinguished family of Massachusetts, which included his great aunt Margaret Fuller, a feminist and writer linked with the transcendentalist circles of Emerson and Thoreau, Richard Buckminster Fuller Jr left Harvard University, where all the Fuller men had studied since 1740, to become an autodidact and get by doing odd jobs. After marrying Anne Hewlett and serving in the Navy during World War I, he worked for his architect father-in-law at a company that manufactured reinforced bricks. The company went under in 1927, and Fuller set out on a year of isolation and solitude, during which time he nurtured many of his ideas—such as four-dimensional thinking (including time), which he dubbed ‘4D’—and the search for maximum human benefit with minimum use of energy and materials using design. He also pondered inventing light, portable towers that could be moved with airships anywhere on the planet, which he was already beginning to refer to as ‘Spaceship Earth’. Dymaxion Universe Prefabrication and the pursuit of lightness through cables were the main characteristics of 4D towers, just like the module of which they were made, a dwelling supported by a central mast whose model was presented as a single- family house and was displayed in 1929 at the Marshall Field’s department store in Chicago and called ‘Dymaxion House’. The name was coined by the store’s public relations team by joining the words that most often appeared in Fuller’s eloquent explanations: dynamics, maximum, and tension, and which the visionary designer would later use for other inventions like the car, also called Dymaxion. -
Buckminster Fuller’S Dymaxion Car
Darienite News for Darien https://darienite.com Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Car, Produced in Bridgeport in the 1930s: Cameron on Transportation Author : David Gurliacci Categories : Opinion, Transportation Tagged as : Buckminster Fuller, Cameron on Transportation, Cameron on Transportation 2019, Cameron on Transportation History, Cameron on Transportation History 2019, Dymaxion Car, Jim Cameron's Transportation Column, Jim Cameron's Transportation Column 2020 Date : December 26, 2019 Did you know that Bridgeport was once the home of “the car of the future?” It was the Tesla of its era, but only three were ever built. This mystery vehicle? The Dymaxion Car. The designer? Buckminster Fuller. Best known for pioneering the 1940s architectural design of the geodesic dome, Fuller was already inventing other things a decade earlier. It was the 1930s and the country was struggling through the Depression. Fuller saw the need for innovation, for “doing more with less,” and conceived of a mass-produced, pre-fabricated 1 / 4 Darienite News for Darien https://darienite.com circular house modeled after a grain silo. Built with aluminum, Fuller only saw two prototypes of the dwelling constructed, and even they weren’t actually built until 1945. Fuller called his design The Dymaxion House — Dy for dynamic, Max for maximum and Ion for tension. It was a major flop. Next, Fuller moved on to transportation, conceiving of the Dymaxion Car, an 11-person, three-wheeled vehicle that he hoped could fly using what he called “jet stilts.” And this was decades before the invention of the jet engine. Indeed, the Dymaxion Car looked a lot like a stubby zeppelin with a forward-facing cockpit and tapered, aerodynamic tail. -
Brochure Exhibition Texts
BROCHURE EXHIBITION TEXTS “TO CHANGE SOMETHING, BUILD A NEW MODEL THAT MAKES THE EXISTING MODEL OBSOLETE” Radical Curiosity. In the Orbit of Buckminster Fuller September 16, 2020 - March 14, 2021 COVER Buckminster Fuller in his class at Black Mountain College, summer of 1948. Courtesy The Estate of Hazel Larsen Archer / Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. RADICAL CURIOSITY. IN THE ORBIT OF BUCKMINSTER FULLER IN THE ORBIT OF BUCKMINSTER RADICAL CURIOSITY. Hazel Larsen Archer. “Radical Curiosity. In the Orbit of Buckminster Fuller” is a journey through the universe of an unclassifiable investigator and visionary who, throughout the 20th century, foresaw the major crises of the 21st century. Creator of a fascinating body of work, which crossed fields such as architecture, engineering, metaphysics, mathematics and education, Richard Buckminster Fuller (Milton, 1895 - Los Angeles, 1983) plotted a new approach to combine design and science with the revolutionary potential to change the world. Buckminster Fuller with the Dymaxion Car and the Fly´s Eye Dome, at his 85th birthday in Aspen, 1980 © Roger White Stoller The exhibition peeps into Fuller’s kaleidoscope from the global state of emergency of year 2020, a time of upheaval and uncertainty that sees us subject to multiple systemic crises – inequality, massive urbanisation, extreme geopolitical tension, ecological crisis – in which Fuller worked tirelessly. By presenting this exhibition in the midst of a pandemic, the collective perspective on the context is consequently sharpened and we can therefore approach Fuller’s ideas from the core of a collapsing system with the conviction that it must be transformed. In order to break down the barriers between the different fields of knowledge and creation, Buckminster Fuller defined himself as a “Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Scientist,” a scientific designer (and vice versa) able to formulate solutions based on his comprehensive knowledge of universe. -
The Best Way to Predict the Future Is to Design It Exploration in Future Possibilities from an Industrial Design Perspective
The best way to predict the future is to design it Exploration in future possibilities from an Industrial Design perspective Alexander Jayko Fossland Department of Product Design Norwegian University of Science and Technology ABSTRACT The main problem discussed is what one should design towards in general terms and what rationale can back up designing in general. The article is aimed at professional designers and students of design looking to broaden their philosophical basis for design practice. R. Buckminster Fuller’s literature is assessed. Critical questions are raised about the industrial design profession, constructive and destructive abilities are discovered. Through Fuller’s perspectives, open source, open design, digital fabrication and the blockchain are found to be potential remedies for humanity’s shortcomings in sustainably operating Spaceship Earth. KEYWORDS: R. Buckminster Fuller, Industrial Design, Total human success, Spaceship Earth, Ephemeralization, Real Wealth, Open Source, Open Design, the Blockchain, Digital Fabrication. 1. INTRODUCTION consideration, in addition the analyses of digital fabrication, open source, open design and This article discusses perspectives, principles and blockchain technology is assessed through implications of R. Buckminster Fuller´s philosophy published articles. in the light of modern industrial design. It tries to establish a consensus about what we should 1.1 Origins design towards, and what a designer’s responsibility and contributions could be. Finally In exploring the role of industrial designers, a it looks at concepts in contemporary technology preliminary understanding of the origins of the relevant to Fullers visions and ideas. Industrial Design profession is required. The question of whether Industrial Designers are true This article reviews literature from the following advocates for innovation or profit-driven stylists texts by R. -
Buckminster Fuller's Critical Path
The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand | Buckminster Fuller\'s Critical Path http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/5113 Buckminster Fuller's Critical Path Posted by Big Gav on February 16, 2009 - 5:57am in The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand Topic: Environment/Sustainability Tags: book review, buckminster fuller, critical path, geodesic dome, geoscope, world game [list all tags] Critical Path was the last of Buckminster Fuller's books, published shortly before his death in 1983 and summing up his lifetime of work. Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller was an American architect, author, designer, futurist, inventor and visionary who devoted his life to answering the question "Does humanity have a chance to survive lastingly and successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how?". He is frequently referred to as a genius (albeit a slightly eccentric one). During his lifelong experiment, Fuller wrote 29 books, coining terms such as "Spaceship Earth", "ephemeralization" and "synergetics". He also developed and contributed to a number of inventions inventions, the best known being the geodesic dome. Carbon molecules known as fullerenes (buckyballs) were so named due to their resemblance to geodesic spheres. Bucky was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1981. There is no energy crisis, only a crisis of ignorance - Buckminster Fuller Critical Path Humanity is moving ever deeper into crisis - a crisis without precedent. First, it is a crisis brought about by cosmic evolution irrevocably intent upon completely transforming omnidisintegrated humanity from a complex of around-the-world, remotely-deployed-from-one-another, differently colored, differently credoed, differently cultured, differently communicating, and differently competing entities into a completely integrated, comprehensively interconsiderate, harmonious whole. -
Buckminster Fuller and His Fabulous Designs
GENERAL ARTICLE Buckminster Fuller and his Fabulous Designs G K Ananthasuresh Richard Buckminster Fuller was an American designer who created fantastic designs. His non-conformist creative design ability was augmented with an urge to realize the prototypes not only for practical demonstration but also for widespread use. His creations called for new vocabulary such as synergy, tensegrity, Dymaxion, and the eponymous Fullerene. He had G K Ananthasuresh is a design science philosophy of his own. He thought beyond the Professor of Mechanical design of artifacts. He strived for sustainable living in the Engineering and Coordi- global world long before these concepts became important nator of the Bioengineer- ing Programme at IISc, for the world to deal with. He is described as a comprehensive Bengaluru. His principal anticipatory design scientist. In this article, only his physical area of interest is optimal design artifacts that include two of his lasting design contri- design of stiff structures butions, namely, the tensegrity structures and the geodesic and elastically deformable compliant mechanisms, domes are discussed. which have applications in product design, Good designs bring a positive change in the world and the way we microelectromechanical live. And great designs remain unchanged for decades, or even systems, biomechanics of centuries, because nothing greater came along after them. Al- living cells, and protein though everyone enjoys the benefits of good designs, the process design. This is his third article for Resonance, of design itself is not understood by many because designing is an extolling the works of intensely creative and intellectual activity. Most often, great great designs appear to be realized as a flash of an idea, a radical new engineers. -
Letters to World Citizens Are Design Science and Political Science
Letters to World Citizens Garry Davis Vol IX/3, Jun/July 95 Are Design Science and Political Science Compatible? I was invited to speak at the Buckminster Fuller Centenary Forum at MIT’s Department of Architecture on April 21. The event was sub-titled, “The Global Impact of Bucky.” I was on a panel called “World Thought.” Right up my alley, I thought. Professor Arthur Loeb, head of the visual and environmental studies department at Harvard, was chairing this session. Sharing the podium with me were Ed Applewhite, author of Cosmic Fishing and collaborator with Bucky on Synergetics I & II; architect Shoji Sadao, the director of the Moguchi Museum; Kiyoshi Kuromiya, adjutant of Bucky for Critical Path and Cosmography; and, finally, the forum’s convenor, Lim Chong Keat, eminent architect and urban designer in Malaysia and Singapore and co-organizer with Bucky of the Campuan Group, a design science think tank. Altogether an impressive list of academics, with the exception of yours truly. We have quoted Bucky Fuller many times in these pages. “One world” and “world citizenship” run continuously throughout his writings. Also, in 1927 he accepted humanity as a whole, a “happening” or “verb,” as he wrote in Critical Path, and devoted his life’s work to giving that “fact” a reality through the “design-science revolution,” as he called it. Fuller’s World Game, created with the assistance of our own Bill Perk at Southern Illinois University, is played to “make the world work.” His Dymaxion map revealed the interlinking of the five continents, with the exception of the Bering Straits (a 35-mile gap). -
Instructions for Buckyball
Zometool Project Series: the world’s most powerful Includes detailed instructions START HERE! (and fun!) modeling system. Kids, educators, and by Dr. Steve Yoshinaga WHAT IS A BUCKYBALL? Nobel-prize winning scientists all love Zometool: • it’s unique, brilliant, beautiful A buckyball is a spheri- made of carbon atoms, and 90 edges, the discovered buckyballs, but his name lives • all kits are compatible— more parts, more power! cal molecule made bonds between the carbons. on: a whole class of molecules related to • guaranteed for life! entirely of carbon buckyballs are now called fullerenes. “The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes atoms — the roundest and (some say) most Fullerenes beautiful of all known BUCKYBALLS! Hailed as a breakthrough, molecules. Scientists believe it may be buckyballs have exciting uses in every- thing from medical research to optics, one of the most useful, too. Slicing 12 “points” truncates the icosahedron metallurgy, electronics and energy. Find out how they stimulate human It’s for kicks A buckyball has much more in common research and imagination: with a soccer ball than just looks. It spins, • Molecule of the Year in 1991! bounces against hard surfaces, and when • Lighter than plastic; stronger than steel! squeezed and released, springs back to its • How will this beautiful molecule original shape. Buckyballs are so strong, change your future? they’ve survived 15,000 mph collisions! After the C601 buckyball was discovered in Have a ball with this Wild Science 1985, scientists found more fullerenes. Discovery! Why bucky? Made entirely of carbon, they form spheres (buckyballs), ellipsoids (C70) or tubes Buckyballs were named (buckytubes, or nanotubes2), and have MADE IN USA US Patents RE after the visionary design from kid-safe materials 33,785; 6,840,699 chemical properties more similar to graphite B2. -
Welcome to Vol. 6 No. 9 of BFI News, the E-Bulletin of the Buckminster Fuller Institute
Welcome to Vol. 6 No. 9 of BFI_News, the e-bulletin of the Buckminster Fuller Institute ........................................................... BFI_News brings you news from around the world related to humanity's option for success and comprehensive design solutions. It also features updates from BFI and periodic special offers for our members. ........................................................... BFI UPDATE ........................................................... BFI BOARD CHALLENGE GRANT The BFI Board of Directors has committed itself to a $20,000 Challenge Grant to inspire the financial support of our e-bulletin subscribers, store customers, members and other supporters. We encourage you to seize this opportunity to help us meet the Board's challenge. It is with complete confidence in the quality of our new programs and the caliber of our team that we extend this invitation for you to join our Membership as soon as possible. If you make your donation before December 31, 2005, your money will be matched, dollar for dollar, by the Board's Challenge Grant! To become a member, renew your membership, or simply make a donation, please visit: <http://www.bfi.org/membership.html> ........................................................... DESIGN SCIENCE LAB 2006 The first annual Design Science Summer Lab was a complete success and planning is already underway for next year's lab. For more information or if you are interested in participating in next year's program, please sign up for the 2006 mailing list using the link below: <http://www.bfi.org/summerlab/2006mail.php> ........................................................... *DYMAXION ARTIFACTS STORE UPDATE* Featured Items: Out of Print Books BFI carries all of Bucky's out of print books, from Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth to Nine Chains to the Moon. -
Westminsterresearch Technological Innovation in Architecture: the Role
WestminsterResearch http://www.westminster.ac.uk/westminsterresearch Technological Innovation in Architecture: The Role of the Aberrant Practitioner Mclean, W. This is an electronic version of a PhD thesis awarded by the University of Westminster. © Mr William Mclean, 2018. The WestminsterResearch online digital archive at the University of Westminster aims to make the research output of the University available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the authors and/or copyright owners. Whilst further distribution of specific materials from within this archive is forbidden, you may freely distribute the URL of WestminsterResearch: ((http://westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk/). In case of abuse or copyright appearing without permission e-mail [email protected] Technological Innovation in Architecture: The Role of the Aberrant Practitioner Will McLean A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the University of Westminster for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2018 2 Abstract Technological innovation in architecture can often be attributed to the work or works of individual designers and their unique (tacit) working method. Through an analysis of my published work (articles, essays, edited, co- authored and authored books), I will present how the aberrant creative process which the economist Joseph Schumpeter described as the ‘innovating entrepreneur’ can enlarge the palette of technological possibilities for the architect and define a unique role within the construction industry. The published works survey and explore atypical and innovative technologies and working practices in relation to architecture. The ‘McLean’s Nuggets’ column presented a series of short articles, factual and outliers (provocations in some instances) and established an expansive view of the variety and potential of technology and its application in architecture as a socially beneficial design tool. -
Anexos. Anexo 01 Publicación Cronológica De Los Libros De Buckminster Fuller
ANEXOS. ANEXO 01_ PUBLICACIÓN CRONOLÓGICA DE LOS LIBROS DE BUCKMINSTER FULLER. Recopilación extraía del Instituto Buckminster Fuller Buckminster Fuller, R. (1928). 4D Time Lock. Publicado privadamente en Chicago, Illinois, 200 copias: Biotechnic Press, Lama Foundation, Albuquerque, New Mexico (1929, 1970, 1972). Buckminster Fuller, R. (1938). Nine Chains to the Moon. J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, New York, London, Toronto 1938; republished Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York. 1963. Buckminster Fuller, R. y Marks, R.W. (1960). The dymaxion world of Buckminster Fuller. Anchor Press, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York. Buckminster Fuller, R. (1962). Untitled epic poem on the history of industrialization. Simon & Schuster, New York. Buckminster Fuller, R. (1963). Education automation. Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York. Buckminster Fuller, R. (1963). Ideas and Integrities. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 1963; Collier, Macmillan, Toronto, Canada. 1963. Buckminster Fuller, R. (1963). No more secondhand god. Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York. Buckminster Fuller R. (1963). Operating manual for spaceship earth. E.P. Dutton & Co., New York. 1963, 1971. Buckminster Fuller R. (1968). Capítulo “How Little I know” en What I have learned. Simon & Schuster, NewYork. Buckminster Fuller, R. (1969). Utopia or Oblivion. Bantam Books, New York. Buckminster Fuller, R. (1970). The Buckminster Fuller reader. Editado por James Meller. Jonathan Cape, UK., London. 1970. Penguin Books, Ltd., Middlesex, England. 1970. Buckminster Fuller, R. con Angel, J. y Fiore, Q. (1970). I seem to be a verb Bantam Books, New York. Buckminster Fuller, R. (1970). Intuition. Anchor Press, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York; Impact Publishers, San Luis Obispo, California. -
Raumschiff Erde Und Globales Dorf Joachim
RAUMSCHIFF ERDE UND GLOBALES DORF JOACHIM KRAUSSE Selten genug setzt die Wirkungsge- scheint ihre Lesart der Raumschiff-Erde- an anderer Stelle: “Es braucht nur fünf- schichte eines Buches schon vor dessen Metapher eher an die politische Konstel- zig solcher Ketten bis zur Sonne. Der Erscheinen auf dem Markt ein; noch sel- lation der Ost-West-Konfrontation in Mensch hat also das Potential zu einem tener beginnt diese Wirkung, bevor die- der Chrustschow-Ära und die Angst vor Sinn des persönlichen Kontakts mit al- ses Buch überhaupt geschrieben wurde. dem atomaren Erstschlag zu erinnern len astronomischen Körpern zusätzlich Und dies ist der Fall mit ‘Bedienungsan- als an Fullers Vision des planetaren zu seiner Erde."4 Aus diesem Gedanken leitung für das Raumschiff Erde’, dem Ökosystems, dessen dynamisches Gleich- gehen in den Nachkriegsjahrzehnten populärsten und in viele Sprachen über- gewicht nur intelligent aufrechtzuerhal- Fullers zahlreiche Entwürfe für Himmels- setzten Buch von R. Buckminster Fuller.1 ten ist, wozu nicht nur adaptive Tech- globen, Planetarien und das viele Stadien Als es 1969 veröffentlicht wurde, hatte nologien zu entwickeln sind, sondern durchlaufende, nie realisierte Projekt sich bereits eine kleine Gruppe aus der zuerst einmal die Selbstwahrnehmung ‘Geoscope’ hervor, und zusammengefaßt kalifornischen Szene der damaligen des Menschen sich ändern muß. wird diese kosmologische Entwurfsphi- Counterculture zusammengetan, um Ful- Unter diesem Aspekt entsteht die losophie in seinem letzten, posthum er- lers Lektionen einer ganzheitlichen Be- Raumschiff-Erde-Metapher, und zwar schienenen Buch ‘Cosmography’.5 trachtung der Probleme unseres Heimat- spontan in einer Diskussion, an die sich Der kosmisch planetare Sinn, den planeten in ein – für die Zeit charakteri- Fuller erinnert.