Fuller, R. Buckminster, Jr. (1895–1983)
Richard Buckminster Fuller, Jr., best known as the architect of Houston's Astrodome and other geodesic structures, enjoyed a long and varied career as a structural engineer and unconventional humanistic thinker. A colorful and gregarious individual, Fuller was first embraced by government officials for his innovative designs and later cherished by the 1960s counterculture. He patented more than twenty new inventions, authored twenty-five books and dozens of articles, lectured globally on energy issues and the wise use of world resources, and dabbled in both art and science. Never one to be modest, Fuller called himself "an engineer, inventor, mathematician, architect, cartographer, philosopher, poet, cosmologist, comprehensive designer and choreographer." He especially liked the self-description "anticipatory comprehensive design scientist," because he saw himself as a scientist who anticipated human needs and answered them with technology in the most energy-efficient way.
Fuller's "more with less" philosophy first gained the attention of Americans in the 1920s with his "Dymaxion" inventions. Fuller employed this term—a combination of "dynamic," "maximum," and "ion"—to describe inventions that do the most with the least expenditure of energy. His Dymaxion house was self-sufficient in that it generated its own power, recycled water, and converted wastes into useable energy.
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