Word: fullers
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Buckminster Fuller is technology incarnate. Or at least he sounds that way. He thinks of the entire world in terms of mechanical efficiency: his speech is punctuated by "output-input ratios." Man he describes as a "regenerative consumer." And of a daughter he has written, "It was visible to me that the 1922 death of our child in her fourth year resulted from then unheeded environment process integrations of comprehensively unattended yet design preventable factors...
...conversation, his style mellows into something more comprehensible, and he puts a listener quite at ease. "Listener" I use advisedly, for Mr. Fuller does indeed like to talk. His talk may be circuitous, verbose and disorganized--it is also seldom anything less than brilliant. He speaks with an obvious respect for those listening, and imports an aura of friendliness, if not of vibrant warmth. Having a rather inexpressive face, he relies heavily on gesticulation--vast and frequent sweeps of the arm. He has a large head, set on broad shoulders and a stocky frame. His clothes fit loosely...
Decades ago, Fuller (who is now 66) drew from the Malthusian and Darwinian theses the implication that man, in order to survive, has adopted a "you-or-me" philosophy. To continue living in an over-populated world, man has taken to war. The consequent development of "weaponry" has, however, also produced improvements in the art of "livingry": progress has been especially notable, for example, in transportation and in mass production...
With the goal of helping to raise man's living standard still higher, and at a faster rate, Fuller has devoted his life to inventing construction systems of extreme economic efficiency, and to applying these to "livingry" rather than "weaponry." Perhaps his greatest contribution in this respect has been his work with the tetrahedron, a four-faced pyramid which Fuller has discovered to be the most resistant of all polyhedra to external pressure. By combining many tetrahedra into a spherical shape (the sphere can withstand the greatest internal pressures), Fuller constructed his geodesic dome, an extremely light and economical structure...
Another of his earlier mass-produceable structures, the Dymaxion house, revolutioned architecture during the 'twenties. Utilizing production techniques from the aircraft and automobile industries, Fuller made this the first attempt to apply modern technology to dwellings. The hexagonal house had no foundations; it hung from a central mast, thereby minimizing the danger from earth-quakes and obviating the usual necessity to grade the site before construction could begin; it was possible to erect the Dymaxion house in less than twenty-four hours. All utilities, including cesspool, water tank, and a diesel engine to supply power, were located in a mechanical...