Design science as employed by Fuller draws upon a multi-disciplinary, whole-systems approach to the understanding, design and implementation of solutions to complex problems, and formed the central core of his thinking. Fuller applied the term design science to describe a process, form and opus as a whole. It appears a deliberate strategy to leave definitions of design science fluid, elusive, and open to interpretation, so as to encourage those interested in its application to do their own thinking.

The Buckminster Fuller Institute is committed to continued research into the practice and fundamental principles of comprehensive anticipatory design science and its relevance to contemporary global issues and design practice. We are delighted to invite you to respond to a new publication on the subject written by Fuller’s student and colleague Dr. Michael Ben-Eli.

Design Science: A Framework for Change [648kb pdf] is the result of a year of intensive research into Fuller’s conceptions and practice of design science as well as wide-ranging interviews with some of its key practitioners.

We want to know what you think.

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.

To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

- R. Buckminster Fuller

From ARTFORUM.com...

A Global Outlook
A self-proclaimed “comprehensive anticipatory design scientist,” R. Buckminster Fuller always had his sights fixed firmly on the future—and a quarter century after his death, it is his future we now inhabit. Our present, as architectural historian Sean Keller notes in his overview of Fuller’s career, is not exactly the one that Fuller imagined, but at a time of skyrocketing oil prices, global warming, and tense geopolitics, his prognostications—if not all his design solutions—seem cannier than ever before.

Part inventor, part architect, part engineer, and part ecologist, Fuller left us a sprawling inheritance that Artforum assesses here, on the occasion of his current traveling retrospective. In addition to Keller’s survey, architect Thom Mayne, artist Fritz Haeg, and architectural critics Michael Wang, Kevin Pratt, and Helene Furján offer distinctive takes on Fuller’s impact on realms ranging from buildings to biology and beyond. Keller, Mayne, and Wang’s evaluations are available online. For the rest, check out the November issue of Artforum.

BFI is working with Professor David Walczyk's Usability Leadership graduate students at Pratt Institute to study the effectiveness of BFI.org and to help us improve the website for our readers and members.

We need your help to make this study a success and to inform the evolution of BFI.org!

Professor Walczyk's students have put together a brief survey for site users and we would greatly appreciate you taking a few moments to complete it.

Thank you!

Portland Center Stage presents the award-winning play R. Buckminster Fuller, The History (and Mystery) of the Universe on stage at Gerding Theater at the Armory in Portland, Oregon.

Click here for more information and to buy tickets.

thirteen.org

We are pleased to announce the launch of the much-anticipated Buckminster Fuller Challenge Idea Index, an interactive, searchable database of entries to the 2008 Buckminster Fuller Challenge.