‘Inventor of the Future’ Review: Buckminster Fuller’s Big Designs
wsj.com
wsj.com
An interesting comment, and one which I don't entirely disagree with. But there is some inherent benefit to the "big idea person" who is able to bring large groups of people along with them to work on those big ideas together.
Have their been any examples of that same effect occurring in the realms that the author describes?
It's almost as if they feel the need to state their ideology upfront as a means of presenting their bona fides to the outlet's owner, regardless of the practical nature of the issue.
In the case of Fuller's geodesic domes, well, one might argue that developing robust building codes for such domes would be a problem that might even prevent their standardized development across the country (i.e. how strong do the interties need to be, do they need to model their resistance to hurricane-force winds, etc.) - but the alternative would be a lot of collapsed homes after typical natural disasters strike, which would sour the market on the the model for years to come.
I think you missed the part of the quote where they said "abiding by rules"
>abiding by rules, reached by common agreement, that ensure our freedoms do not result in harm to others or to our planet
"(component) in (buildings of this type) will be able to support a static load of x kilograms per square meter".
"(component) in (buildings of this type) will be made according to one of these specific designs".
The first kind provides for adequate safety. The second stifles innovation.
Geodesic domes should absolutely be held to the same safety standards as other designs. But you shouldn't have to go through some nightmarish variance process in every single jurisdiction to build one, especially since most areas use some variation of one of the national or international codes.
Engineers should be able to have a new design analyzed and tested by independent testing labs, and then it should be automatically approved across all jurisdictions -- now, not three years from now when the new edition of the code comes out.
Here are a few of the factual inaccuracies that this article uses to build a wholly incorrect view of Fuller:
> attempts at industrializing housing production have failed again and again
Manufactured homes are nowadays about 10% of new homes in the USA, hardly an abject failure.
> Fuller chauffeured Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart to the White House—the car never made it to a production line. But its chubby front somehow portends the VW bus
This is a deep misunderstanding of the important influence of the Dymaxion car on vehicle design. The reason it looks similar to the VW Bus is because the bus copied the 'forward control' concept, which radically increased the interior space and passenger count for a small efficient vehicle. To dismiss it as a funny coincidence is really ignorant.
> Fuller also came up with the concept of “tensegrity”
As Fuller himself admits, he did not come up with this concept, one of his students did, he only came up with the word itself. Fuller's contribution was showing examples of how concepts like this could help build a better future for humanity, e.g. by reducing the resources needed to construct buildings.
> Fuller did not really understand that “design” means something altogether different at different scales
This is a really absurd assertion, since it's one of the key focuses of his work- the geometric and mathematical implications of scaling designs. "Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking" talks about this concept he supposedly fails to understand in extreme depth.
> Fuller did not accept evolution and saw the world as the creation of an intelligent god
This is also untrue, he talks often about evolution as a fact in his writings, but does have some deep spiritual beliefs that inspired his self confidence and efforts. As far as I can tell, they have no connection with established religion, or any opposition to scientific concepts like evolution.
> It is no wonder, therefore, that Fuller had little of use to say about cities and metropolitan areas
Again, the author here clearly has read none of Fuller's work, and has no familiarity with which concepts he has a lot or little to say about. In this own article he talks about his concept of building a dome over Manhattan, which directly contradicts this assertion. In short- Fuller saw the haphazard unplanned design of cities to be massively inefficient, especially the massive surface area requiring huge amounts of heating and cooling. He came up with tons of ideas to increase the efficiency and livability of large cities and metropolitan areas.
> Fuller’s built forms—Dymaxion houses or geodesic domes—all have circular footprints and are at their best when positioned in the middle of an open field. Dense cities, on the other hand, are never made from circular footprints.
This is easily the silliest assertion of the article- again an example of claiming Fuller never considered issues that he actually wrote entire books about. Really a huge amount of Fuller's work was on the mathematics of efficiently packing spheres into large systems, with direct discussions of the implications of this for constructing cities more efficiently and thoughtfully. This problem is a key focus of the book "Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking"... complete with pages and pages of diagrams of different ways of packing spheres and circles, and detailed discussions about the implications for urban design!
The other one painted a picture of him as a guy who was a master of networking and taking credit for other people’s ideas, and talking a big game. I can’t find it, but here’s a discussion of yet another different sounding review of this book on HN a month ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32677512