Richard Buckminster Fuller was an American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, and futurist. Fuller published more than 30 books, coining or popularizing terms such as "Spaceship Earth", "Dymaxion" house/car, ephemeralization, synergetic, and "tensegrity". He also developed numerous inventions, mainly architectural designs, and popularized the widely known geodesic dome. Carbon molecules known as fullerenes were later named by scientists for their structural and mathematical resemblance to geodesic spheres.
A geodesic dome is a hemispherical thin-shell structure (lattice-shell) based on a geodesic polyhedron. The triangular elements of the dome are structurally rigid and distribute the structural stress throughout the structure, making geodesic domes able to withstand very heavy loads for their size.
Tensegrity, tensional integrity or floating compression is a structural principle based on the use of isolated components in compression inside a net of continuous tension, in such a way that the compressed members do not touch each other and the prestressed tensioned members delineate the system spatially.
Dymaxion is a term that Buckminster Fuller associated with much of his work—prominently his Dymaxion house and Dymaxion car. Dymaxion, a portmanteau of the words dynamic, maximum, and tension; sums up the goal of his study, "maximum gain of advantage from minimal energy input."
The Dymaxion map or Fuller map is a projection of a world map onto the surface of an icosahedron, which can be unfolded and flattened to two dimensions. The flat map is heavily interrupted in order to preserve shapes and sizes.
The Dymaxion car was designed by American inventor Buckminster Fuller during the Great Depression and featured prominently at Chicago's 1933/1934 World's Fair. Fuller built three experimental prototypes with naval architect Starling Burgess – using donated money as well as a family inheritance – to explore not an automobile per se, but the 'ground-taxiing phase' of a vehicle that might one day be designed to fly, land and drive – an "Omni-Medium Transport". Fuller associated the word Dymaxion with much of his work, a portmanteau of the words dynamic, maximum, and tension, to summarize his goal to do more with less.
Buckminster Fuller: Thinking Out Loud (1996) is a PBS American Masters documentary on the inventor, visionary, and thinker R. Buckminster Fuller produced and directed by Academy Award nominees Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon. Cinematography by Buddy Squires, edited by Sara Fishko, and a production of Simon & Goodman Picture Company.
World Game, sometimes called the World Peace Game, is an educational simulation developed by Buckminster Fuller in 1961 to help create solutions to overpopulation and the uneven distribution of global resources. This alternative to war games uses Fuller's Dymaxion map and requires a group of players to cooperatively solve a set of metaphorical scenarios, thus challenging the dominant nation-state perspective with a more holistic "total world" view. The idea was to "make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone," thus increasing the quality of life for all people.
R. Buckminster Fuller coined the term design science revolution to describe his proposed scientific and socio-economic revolution accomplished by shifting from "weaponry to livingry" through the application of what he called comprehensive anticipatory design science. His World Design Science Decade, proposed to the International Union of Architects in 1961, was an attempt to catalyze the revolution.
In futures studies and the history of technology, accelerating change is a perceived increase in the rate of technological change throughout history, which may suggest faster and more profound change in the future and may or may not be accompanied by equally profound social and cultural change.
Colonization of Antarctica refers to having humans including families living permanently on the continent of Antarctica. Currently, the continent only hosts a temporary transient population of scientists and support staff. Antarctica is the only continent on Earth without indigenous human inhabitants.
Cloud Nine is the name Buckminster Fuller gave to his proposed airborne habitats created from giant geodesic spheres, which might be made to levitate by slightly heating the air inside above the ambient temperature.
The Universal Credit Corporation (UCC) was a car financing entity for Ford cars that existed in the US in the 1930s. It was established in 1928 and was capitalised by Ford in conjunction with the Union Guardian Trust Company of Detroit. It was set up in response to GMAC through the efforts of Edsel Ford and Ernest Kanzler at Ford to allow customers to buy Ford cars on credit. In 1932, Henry Ford sold the corporation for $US 50 million in order to finance his manufacturing operations during the 1932 Bank Moratorium. Ford's share of the company was sold to Commercial Investment Trust (CIT) Corporation and UCC continued to serve Ford dealers and customers.
Ephemeralization, a term coined by R. Buckminster Fuller, is the ability of technological advancement to do "more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing," that is, an accelerating increase in the efficiency of achieving the same or more output while requiring less input. Fuller's vision was that ephemeralization will result in ever-increasing standards of living for an ever-growing population despite finite resources. The concept has been embraced by those who argue against Malthusian philosophy.
The Old Man River's City project was an architectural design created by Buckminster Fuller in 1971. Fuller was asked to design the structure by the city of East St. Louis. Old Man River's City would have been a truly massive housing project for the city's 70,000 residents. The total capacity of the building, a circular multi-terraced dome, would be 125,000 occupants. Each family would have approximately 2,500 square feet (230 m2) of living space.
I originally came to East St. Louis to discuss the design and possible realization of the Old Man River's City, having been asked to do so by East St. Louis community leaders themselves ... It is moon-crater-shaped: the crater's truncated cone top opening is a half-mile in diameter, rim-to-rim, while the truncated mountain itself is a mile in diameter at its base ring. The city has a one-mile -diameter geodesic, quarter-sphere transparent umbrella mounted high above it to permit full, all-around viewing below the umbrella's bottom perimeter. The top of the dome roof is 1,000 feet (300 m) high. The bottom rim of the umbrella dome is 500 feet (150 m) above the surrounding terrain, while the crater-top esplanade, looks 250 feet (76 m) radially inward from the umbrella's bottom, is at the same 500-foot (150 m) height. From the esplanade the truncated mountain cone slopes downwardly, inward and outward, to ground level 500 feet (150 m) below.
The moon crater's inward and outward, exterior-surface slopes each consist of fifty terraces - the terrace floors are tiered vertically ten feet above or below one another. All the inwardly, downwardly sloping sides of the moon crater's terraced cone are used for communal life; its outward-sloping, tree-planted terraces are entirely for private life dwelling.
Synergetics is the empirical study of systems in transformation, with an emphasis on total system behavior unpredicted by the behavior of any isolated components, including humanity's role as both participant and observer.
The Geoscope was a proposal by Buckminster Fuller in 1962 to create a 200-foot-diameter (61 m) globe, which would be covered in colored lights so that it could function as a large spherical display. It was envisioned that the Geoscope would be connected to computers which would allow it to display both historical and current data, and enable people to visualize large scale patterns around the globe.
The R. Buckminster Fuller and Anne Hewlett Dome Home, located at 407 S. Forest Ave. in Carbondale, Illinois, is a geodesic dome house which was the residence of Buckminster Fuller from 1960 to 1971. The house, inhabited by Fuller while he taught at Southern Illinois University, was the only geodesic dome Fuller lived in as well as the only property he ever owned. Fuller, a prolific architect and engineer, popularized the geodesic dome as a building design, and his house was one of the first geodesic dome residences to be constructed. The home was built and designed by Al Miller of the Pease Woodworking Company. While living in the home, Fuller was awarded nine patents, published eleven books, and designed the Montreal Biosphère, one of his most famous works.
The Last Dymaxion: Buckminster Fuller’s Dream Restored is a 2012 documentary film directed by Noel Murphy. about Buckminster Fuller's 1933 Dymaxion car as well as Fuller himself.
In economics, dematerialization refers to the absolute or relative reduction in the quantity of materials required to serve economic functions in society. In common terms, dematerialization means doing more with less. This concept is similar to ephemeralization as proposed by Buckminster Fuller.
