Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller (12 luglio 1895 – 1 luglio 1983) fu un inventore, architetto, designer e visionario americano. Fu anche professore alla Southern Illinois University e prolifico scrittore.
Perso il padre in giovane età e trascorse la vita in campagna, ebbe diverse esperienze come operaio in fabbrica imparò ad utilizzare diverse macchine utensili.
Frequentò la Milton Academy, in Massachusetts ed in seguitò Harvard ma ne fu espulso due volte, la seconda per la sua “irresponsabile mancanza di interesse”!!!.
Durante la prima guerra mondiale si arruolò in marina ed ebbe diverse esperienze da operatore radio a comandande di barca da soccorso, una volta tornato in patria mise su una fabbrica per la progettazione di abitazioni che fossero più sicure e leggere. Ma le cose non andarono bene e l’azienda fallì, fu così nel 1927 a 32 anni, in bancarotta e disoccupato, a Chicago, vide sua figlia Alexandra morire di polmonite. Lo stato delle cose lo spinse a bere e a contemplare il suicidio, ma all’ultimo momento decise di trasformare la sua vita in “un esperimento, per scoprire cosa un singolo uomo può fare per cambiare il mondo e dare beneficio all’umanità intera”.
Fuller accettò un incarico in un piccolo college in North Carolina. Lì sviluppò il concetto di cupola geodetica. Il governo americano capitane l’importanza per costruire cupole per le installazioni dell’esercito. Dopo pochi anni nel mondo furono fabbricate migliaia di cupole geodetiche.
Filososia e Visione del Mondo
Questo signore aveva come priorità la comprensione, questo lo spinse ad essere un pionere della ricerca.
La sua idea era che dando uno sguardo omnicomprensivo al mondo finito in cui viviamo, sia possibile cogliere le infinite possibilità per migliorare i nostri standard di vita.
Volendo ridurre gli scarti, Fuller esplorò e propose il principio dell “efemeralizzazione” che in parole semplici significava “fare di più con meno“.
Fuller esplorò i principi dell’efficienza energetica e dell’uso razionale dei materiali.
Considerando il ciclo di lavorazione e utilizzo del petrolio dal punto di vista del “budget energetico planetario“, derivante principalmente dalla quantità di raggi solari ricevuti dal pianeta, Fuller ha calcolato che ogni litro di petrolio consumato costa al pianeta oltre 300.000 dollari per essere prodotto!!!
Era particolarmente interessato alla sostenibilità e al tema della sopravvivenza della razza umana con l’attuale sistema socio economico e, nonostante le critiche, era profondamente ottimista sulle prospettive dell’umanità.
***ENGLISH VERSION***
Richard Buckminster (“Bucky”) Fuller (July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American visionary, designer, architect, poet, author, and inventor.
Throughout his life, Fuller was concerned with the question “Does humanity have a chance to survive lastingly and successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how?” Considering himself an average individual without special monetary means or academic degree, he chose to devote his life to this question, trying to find out what an individual like him could do to improve humanity’s condition that large organizations, governments, or private enterprises inherently could not do.
Buckminster Fuller’s father died when the boy was 12. Spending his youth on Bear Island off the coast of Maine, he was a boy with a natural propensity for design and for making things. Fuller earned a machinist’s certification, and he also knew how to fabricate using the press brake, stretch press, and other tools and equipment relied upon in the sheet-metal trade.
Fuller was sent to Milton Academy, in Massachusetts. Afterwards, he began studying at Harvard but was expelled from the university twice: the second time, for his “irresponsibility and lack of interest.”
He served in the U.S. Navy in World War I. In the Navy he was employed as an aboard-ship radio operator, as an editor of a publication, and as a crash-boat commander. In the early 1920s he and his father-in-law developed the Stockade Building System for producing light-weight, weatherproof, and fireproof housing — though ultimately the company failed.
In 1927 at the age of 32, bankrupt and jobless, living in inferior housing in Chicago, Illinois, he saw his beloved young daughter Alexandra die of the complications of polio and spinal meningitis. He felt responsible, and this drove him to drink and to the verge of suicide. At the last moment he decided instead to embark on “an experiment, to find what a single individual can contribute to changing the world and benefiting all humanity.”
Fuller accepted a position at a small college in North Carolina, Black Mountain College. There, with the support of a group of professors and students, he began work on the project that would make him famous and revolutionize the field of engineering, the geodesic dome. The U.S. government recognized the importance of the discovery and employed him to make small domes for the army. Within a few years there were thousands of these domes around the world.
Philosophy and worldview
Buckminster Fuller strove to inspire humanity to take a comprehensive view of the finite world we live in and the infinite possibilities for an ever-increasing standard of living within it.
Deploring waste, he advocated a principle that he termed “ephemeralization” — which in essence Fuller coined to mean “doing more with less.”
Wealth can be increased by recycling resources into newer, higher value products whose more technically sophisticated design requires less material.
Fuller also introduced synergetics, which is a metaphoric language for communicating experiences using geometric concepts. (long before the term synergy became popular).
He explored principles of energy and material efficiency in the fields of architecture, engineering and design. He was convinced that petroleum from the standpoint of its replacement cost out of our current energy “budget” (essentially the incoming solar flux), he declared that it had cost nature “over a million dollars” per U.S. gallon ($300,000/L) to produce.
He was deeply concerned about sustainability and about human survival under the existing socio-economic system, yet was profoundly optimistic about humanity’s prospects.
