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Youth designs simple, insulated geodesic dome made of garbage

March 2, 2009 / Klint Finley

Max’s original idea was developed as a scale model with the materials he had on hand. Plastic grocery bags from the kitchen cabinet and coat hangers from his closet were the trash that came together to make a structure influenced by the building styles of Mongolian yurts. Working with the crew from Continuum, he was able to use and develop techniques to build a full size model of his dome. The resulting dome is based on the work of R. Buckminster Fuller and his geodesic dome, but they came up with a relatively new technique of making each panel a cell, rather than using the often used hub and spoke design. For the sheathing material, they used thick plastic sealed at the edges with a heat strip. The center of the panels is filled with packing peanuts, making for a very well insulated structure.Max’s original idea was developed as a scale model with the materials he had on hand. Plastic grocery bags from the kitchen cabinet and coat hangers from his closet were the trash that came together to make a structure influenced by the building styles of Mongolian yurts. Working with the crew from Continuum, he was able to use and develop techniques to build a full size model of his dome. The resulting dome is based on the work of R. Buckminster Fuller and his geodesic dome, but they came up with a relatively new technique of making each panel a cell, rather than using the often used hub and spoke design. For the sheathing material, they used thick plastic sealed at the edges with a heat strip. The center of the panels is filled with packing peanuts, making for a very well insulated structure.

Full Story: MAKE

(via OVO)

Buckminster Fuller bibliography and geodesic dome logistics study published

August 20, 2008 / Klint Finley

Buckminster Fuller expert Trevor Blake has published two must-have books for Buckminster Fuller completeists:

Buckminster Fuller Bibliography
by Trevor Blake

buckminster fuller bibliography by trevor blake

Nearly one thousand entries by and about Buckminster Fuller in print. Extensive and accurate. Traces Fuller’s trajectory from outsider to globe trotting lecturer to cultural icon. Includes information found in no previous book on Fuller. 117 pages, 6″ x 9″, jacket-hardcover binding, cream interior paper (50# weight), black and white interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), black and white exterior ink. [more information] [purchase]

A Study of Shelter Logistics for Marine Aviation
by Col. Henry C. Lane

A Study of Shelter Logistics for Marine Aviation

In 1954, the US Marine Corps put the geodesic domes of Buckminster Fuller to the test. The domes were declared “the first major basic improvement in mobile military shelters for the past 2,600 years.” New introduction by Trevor Blake offers background information on this study and expands on its outcome. Rare and out of print for more than fifty years. 144 pages, 8.25″ x 10.75″, casewrap-hardcover binding, white interior paper (50# weight), black and white interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), black and white exterior ink. [more information] [purchase]

For more information visit The Synchronofile

Of course, you will also have the chance to see Trevor Blake’s presentation The Approximately Omnidirectional Ephemeralization of Richard Buckminster Fuller at Esozone.

Interview with first Buckminster Fuller Challenge winner

August 7, 2008 / Klint Finley

Metropolis Magazine interviews John Todd, who recently won the first annual Buckminster Fuller Challenge prize for his proposal to “transform strip-mined lands in Appalachia into a self-sustaining community”:

One of the things that Bucky Fuller said, which has always been a bit of an inspiration for me, is, ‘I don’t imitate nature. I try and understand her operating principles.’ What I have dedicated my life to doing is to try and understand just exactly how nature works, and how those processes might be applied to the design of systems to support the human community. I’ve been inventing and developing living technologies called ‘eco-machines,’ which use living organisms to do the work, everything from the bacteria to the ancient cyanobacteria to the protozoa, to the funghi, to the higher plants, to the animals. The eco-machines have different ecological elements within them that kind of communicate with each other, to create what I call ‘ecological meta intelligence.’ They can self-organize, self-design, and self-repair themselves. The human ecological engineer directs the system towards a particular goal.

Full Story: Metropolis Magazine

(via Bruce Sterling)

Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe

June 26, 2008 / Klint Finley

dymaxion dwelling machines

“Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe” is a showing of Fuller’s work at the Whitney Museum of American Art from June June 26-Sept. 21, 2008. The occasion has generated a ton of news stories about Fuller. Here are a few:

The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller

Can Fuller be rehabilitated as a 21st century design hero?

A 3-Wheel Dream That Died at Takeoff

Chaos Theory

(via Trevor Blake’s OVO)

If you can’t make it to New York to see the exhibit, perhaps you can make it to these two Portland events:

“The Approximately Omnidirectional Ephemeralization of Richard Buckminster Fuller.” – a presentation by Trevor Blake at Esozone, October 10th.

“R. Buckminster Fuller: The History [and Mystery] of the Universe” – a play about the life and work of Fuller. October 14 – December 7, 2008 at Portland Center Stage.

Previously: Dymaxion Man: Buckminster Fuller essay and slideshow

Buckminster Fuller Commemorative Poster

June 16, 2008 / Klint Finley

god is a verb

From: Changethought

Dymaxion Man: Buckminster Fuller essay and slideshow

June 4, 2008 / Klint Finley

U.S. Pavilion for the 1967 World's Fair, in Montreal

From the New Yorker:

Slide Show

Essay

(via The Tomorrow Museum)

For even more on Buckminster Fuller, come to Esozone for Trevor Blake‘s presentation “The Approximately Omnidirectional Ephemeralization of Richard Buckminster Fuller.”

Buckminster Fuller play in Portland

February 29, 2008 / Klint Finley

(Above: preview for recent San Francisco performance of the play)

R. Buckminster Fuller: The History [and Mystery] of the Universe will be appearing and Portland Center Stage from October 14 – December 7, 2008:

An engineer, architect, mathematician, designer, poet, philosopher, motivational speaker, major utopian thinker and inventor of the geodesic dome, Buckminster Fuller was one of the most remarkable minds of the 20th century. Born in 1895, Bucky was way ahead of his time. Refusing to think in conventional ways, he was an innovator, a futurist, and one of the first true global thinkers. This tour-de-force, one-man performance explores Bucky’s life and work through a blend of testimony, lecture, autobiography, poetry, comic antics and video imagery. The play spirals and spins through ideas and experiences as Bucky escorts you on an unforgettable journey.

Portland Center Stage 2008 page.

(via OVO)

Counterculture Green The Whole Earth Catalog and American Environmentalism

December 8, 2007 / Klint Finley

According to “Counterculture Green: The Whole Earth Catalog and American Environmentalism,” by Andrew G. Kirk, the mind-blowing photo of our planet was a catalyst for the ecology movement. The Whole Earth Catalog itself became the voice of a new kind of environmental advocacy that, rather than shunning science as nature’s enemy, embraced it as the key that could unlock the door to personal freedom and create a post-scarcity social utopia. Advances like pictures from space, personal computers, geodesic domes and even nuclear power were all part of what became known as the “appropriate technology movement,” for which the Whole Earth Catalog was both a resource and a summary. No tree-hugging Luddite or apocalyptic doomsayer, Brand, Kirk writes, had an optimistic outlook shaped by “a love of good tools, thoughtful technology, scientific inquiry and a Western libertarian skepticism of the government’s ability to take the lead in these areas.” Brand wrote of his own publication, “This is a book of tools for saving the world at the only scale it can be done, one hand at a time.”

Full Story: International Herald Tribune.

(via Trevor’s del.icio.us)