CCT204H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Buckminster Fuller, Geodesic Dome, Geodesic
21 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
CCT204H5F - DESIGN THINKING I (SUMMER 2018)
University of Toronto Mississauga | Sheridan College
Professor Ann Donor
LECTURE NOTES
Notes by Jonathan Ho
Week 6 Lecture 11: Design as Intellectual Properties and Designers as Visionaries (June 18, 2018)
Case Study - Buckminster Fuller
●1927 - Bucky Fuller was a total failure, college dropout, penniless, unable to support his life;
on the verge of suicide
●Commiting "ego-code", turned away from efforts aimed only at own personal advantage and
decided his life is doing what needed to be done for the advantage of all humanity
●28 patents
What can you design to help humanity?
●Not preaching to mankind but by inventing solutions to mankind's problems (compassionate
view of the world)
●Sense of urgency; that time would run out
●Believed that science and technology could answer everything
●Feasible to take care of humanity (housing, food, population, pollution)
Bucky Fuller and his works
●Explore outside of accepted structures
○eg. Geodesic dome (large dome that can be set directly on the ground)
●Reinvented "everything"
○eg. House that can be hung up, car with three wheels
●Optimistic Idea of what's possible; Passionately believed
●Sin to build a heavy house, should not weigh or cost more than a cadillac
●Passionate, derived myriads of variations from it (eg. dome, tent, play structure, church)
4D House (1928)
●Interested in how to use aircraft technologies to produce dwelling machines for humanity
●Advanced technology for human environment controlling
●Erection of the building (objects, mass-production methods, parts capable of convenient
transportation)
●25 figures (diagrams; descriptions for things like lighting, water, support, side walls etc.)
Document Summary
Week 6 lecture 11: design as intellectual properties and designers as visionaries (june 18, 2018) 1927 - bucky fuller was a total failure, college dropout, penniless, unable to support his life; on the verge of suicide. Commiting ego-code, turned away from efforts aimed only at own personal advantage and decided his life is doing what needed to be done for the advantage of all humanity. Not preaching to mankind but by inventing solutions to mankind"s problems (compassionate view of the world) Sense of urgency; that time would run out. Believed that science and technology could answer everything. Feasible to take care of humanity (housing, food, population, pollution) Eg. geodesic dome (large dome that can be set directly on the ground) Eg. house that can be hung up, car with three wheels. Optimistic idea of what"s possible; passionately believed. Sin to build a heavy house, should not weigh or cost more than a cadillac.
