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Buckminster Fuller as the home of the future, the Dymaxion House was designed to be the strongest, lightest, and most cost-effective housing ever built. Over the last decade, it has assumed an iconic presence in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation. Fuller developed three prototypes during his lifetime, but two have since been scrapped or damaged. In 2010, British architect Norman Foster – Fuller's friend, student and collaborator – built a replica of the car to replace one of the lost designs. Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal.[32] This building is now the "Montreal Biosphère".In 1962, the artist and searcher John McHale wrote the first monograph on Fuller, published by George Braziller in New York. For half of a century, Fuller developed many ideas, designs, and inventions, particularly regarding practical, inexpensive shelter and transportation.
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Graham built the round house on his lake front property, disabling the ventilator and other interior features. It was inhabited for about 30 years, although as an extension to an existing ranch house, rather than a standalone structure as intended by Fuller. In 1990, the Graham family donated this house, and all the component prototyping parts, to the Henry Ford Museum.
Eight of Buckminster Fuller's most forward-thinking ideas
However, due to internal problems as well as Bucky's unwillingness to commercialize the design before he felt it was ready, the Dymaxion House never took off as a form of housing. The Dymaxion House prototype was eventually rescued and restored, and is now housed at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. During the prototyping process, the idea for the packaging toilet was quickly replaced by a conventional septic system because the packaging plastic was not available. Other features worked as advertised, notably the heating, and the passive air conditioning system, based on the "dome effect".
The Dymaxion House: A New Way of Living
Fuller adapted the principles for the Geodesic Dome from an earlier proposal, created by an engineer after the first world war, and then patented the design in the US in 1954. Today, there are 300,000 interpretations across the world, according to the Buckminster Fuller Institute. The "pods" or dividers between rooms allow little room for furniture to be placed up against them. They have interesting shelves and closets built into them so you don't need furniture taking up floor space. Working as a designer, scientist, developer, and writer, he continued to lecture for many years around the world. From special offers to our series of popular Enthusiasts eNewsletters, you can tailor the information you’d like us to deliver directly to your inbox.
Instead of aluminum, the DDU’s were built with galvanized corrugated iron, the same materials used by the aircraft industry. Just as importantly, the DDU’s designed to be manufactured in the same plants pushing out fighter planes and bombers. Air Force immediately ordered 2000, and the British War Relief Society began to order units to be shipped overseas as emergency housing (though the DDU’s proved to be capable bomb shelters). By the time the first prototype was built, Fuller had managed to streamline the design, making the “Dymaxion” more stable, yet reducing the overall weight. The 1929 version weighed a total of 6000 lbs and provided over 1600 square feet of living space.
Fuller, R. Buckminster (Richard Buckminster), 1895-19831945
The entire exterior of the house was constructed of aluminum, one of the only materials Fuller decided met the aforementioned performance criteria he had set. Two Dymaxion houses were prototyped—one indoor (the "Barwise" house) and one outdoor (the "Danbury" house). No Dymaxion house built according to Fuller's intentions was ever constructed and lived in. The only two prototypes of the round, aluminum house were bought by investor William Graham, together with assorted unused prototyping elements as salvage after the venture failed. In 1948, Graham constructed a hybridized version of the Dymaxion house as his family's home; the Grahams lived there into the 1970s.
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More thinker than capitalist, Fuller refused to sign off on a final production version. Always seeking improvement and innovation to the point of stalling the project completely, the persnickety inventor dealt his own dream a mortal blow. Bucky designed a home that was heated and cooled by natural means, that made its own power, was earthquake and storm-proof, and made of permanent, engineered materials that required no periodic painting, reroofing, or other maintenance. You could easily change the floor plan as required – squeezing the bedrooms to make the living room bigger for a party, for instance. The Dymaxion House uses tension suspension from a central mast, which appears in every room.
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More an engineering solution than a home, the structure was prototyped but never produced. In 1920 Fuller wished to build a sustainable autonomous single family dwelling, the living machine of the future. Although never built, the Dymaxion's design displayed forward-thinking and influential innovations in prefabrication and sustainability. Not only would the house have been exemplary in its self-sufficiency, but it also could have been mass-produced, flat-packaged and shipped throughout the world. The final design of the Dymaxion house used a central vertical stainless-steel strut on a single foundation. Structures similar to the spokes of a bicycle-wheel hung down from this supporting the roof, while beams radiated out supported the floor.
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Two Dymaxion houses were prototyped - one indoor (the "Barwise" house) and one outdoor (the "Danbury" house). In 1948, Graham constructed a hybridized version of the Dymaxion House as his family's home; the Grahams lived there into the 1970s. It was inhabited for about 30 years, although as an extension to an existing ranch house, rather than standing alone as intended by Fuller. In 1990, the Graham family donated this house, and all the component prototyping parts, to The Henry Ford Museum. One of his early models was first constructed in 1945 at Bennington College in Vermont, where he lectured often.
While some institutions would put such a rare artifact away for safekeeping or design a display that kept visitors at bay, The Henry Ford invested $1 million in a restoration project that would open the house to the public. Open as in visitors could walk through the front door, tour rooms and experience the domed dwelling from the inside out. The 100 sqm hexagonal house was an earthquake and storm resistant structure, supported by a central pole from which cables would be suspended, allowing the outer walls to be non-bearing.
Fuller's energy-efficient and inexpensive Dymaxion house garnered much interest, but only two prototypes were ever produced. Here the term "Dymaxion" is used in effect to signify a "radically strong and light tensegrity structure". One of Fuller's Dymaxion Houses is on display as a permanent exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Designed and developed during the mid-1940s, this prototype is a round structure (not a dome), shaped something like the flattened "bell" of certain jellyfish. It has several innovative features, including revolving dresser drawers, and a fine-mist shower that reduces water consumption.
The initial method used a circular concrete footing in which anchor posts were set. Tubes cut to length and with ends flattened were then bolted together to form a duodeca-rhombicahedron (22-sided hemisphere) geodesic structure with spans ranging to 60 feet (18 m). The form was then draped with layers of ¼-inch wire mesh attached by twist ties. Concrete was sprayed onto the structure, building up a solid layer which, when cured, would support additional concrete to be added by a variety of traditional means.
According to Fuller biographer Steve Crooks, the house was designed to be delivered in two cylindrical packages, with interior color panels available at local dealers. A circular structure at the top of the house was designed to rotate around a central mast to use natural winds for cooling and air circulation. Conceived nearly two decades earlier, and developed in Wichita, Kansas, the house was designed to be lightweight, adapted to windy climates, cheap to produce and easy to assemble. It looked ultramodern at the time, built of metal, and sheathed in polished aluminum. Due to publicity, there were many orders during the early Post-War years, but the company that Fuller and others had formed to produce the houses failed due to management problems. In 1928, Fuller’s ideas on housing came to fruition when he presented his design for the 4D Dymaxion house, a reference to the fourth dimension, to the American Insitute of Architects and was swiftly rejected.
All this would be possible now if houses were engineered, mass-produced, and sold like cars. The Dymaxion House was a futuristic dwelling invented by the architect and practical philosopher R. The word “Dymaxion,” which combines the words dynamic, maximum and tension, was coined (among many others) by Fuller himself. Since there was no evidence of the crucial internal rain-gutter system, some elements of the rain collecting system were omitted from the restored exhibit. The roof was designed to wick water inside and drip into the rain-gutter and then to the cistern, rather than have a difficult-to-fit, perfectly waterproof roof. For conducting offshore drilling, the Submersible is designed to be partially submerged underwater, to protect apparatus known as an oil derrick from damage caused by stormy weather.
It incorporated many of the safety and sustainability features of the original Dymaxion House, yet retained the simplicity and convenience of the Dymaxion Dwelling. Weighing in at a total of 3000 pounds (less than half of the original Dymaxion House) the 1200 square foot Wichita House came with two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, two Dymaxion bathrooms, laundry unit, and even a conveyor belt storage system. Fuller wouldn’t be content until his houses could produce their own power, dispose of their own waste, and provide the same level of comfort, regardless of geographic location.
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