Fuller, Richard Buckminster

SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building

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b. 12 July 1895 Milton, Massachusetts, USA

d. 1 July 1983 Los Angeles, California, USA

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American engineer, designer and inventor noted particularly for his creation of the geodesic dome.

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After naval service during the First World War, Fuller worked for some time in the building industry with his father, who was an architect. In 1927 he became interested in trying to solve social problems by providing good, low-cost housing for an expanding population. Utilizing modern techniques applicable in other industries, such as the design of aircraft and ships, he produced his "Dymaxion House", which was transportable and cheap. This was followed in 1946 by his aluminium, stressed-skin, prefabricated house. The geodesic dome is the structural concept for which Fuller is particularly known. It was patented in 1954 and 300,000 were built over a thirty-year period. He had envisaged the dome being utilized on smaller or larger, simple or complex patterns for a wide variety of needs such as enclosing a covered area for a house, a botanical garden, an exhibition pavilion, a factory, a weather station or, indeed, an entire city. A famous example that he designed was that for the US pavilion at Expo '67 in Montreal. A geodesic dome is generally spherical in form, the chief structural elements of which are interconnected in a geodesic pattern, i.e. one in which the lines connecting two points are the shortest possible. The structure is composed of slender, lightweight struts (usually of aluminium) arranged in geometrical patterns, with the metal skeleton covered by a light, plastic material. Inside the dome, all the space is usable and the climate is controllable. Fuller wrote and lectured widely on his patented invention, explaining the importance of structural research particularly in relation to world needs.

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Bibliography

1975, Synergetics: Exploration on the Geometry of Thinking, Macmillan.

1973, with R.W.Marks, The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller, New York: Reprint Anchor.

Further Reading

M.Pawley, 1990, Buckminster Fuller, Trefoil Books.

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