6490 Comprehensive Designing

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r. buckminster fuller

Buckminster Fuller is best known as designer of the dymaxion house,dymaxion automobile, geodesic house; as geographer and geometer, etc.An integral view of the total process of man-world-universe s fundamentalto his concept of the Comprehensive Designer as "an emerging synthesisof artist, inventor, mechanic, ob iective economist and evolutionary strategist".

Th e Comprehensive Designer emerges as the an-swer to the following problem (th e greatest problemever addressed by mankind): The Human Family nownumbering 2%billion is increasing at an annual rate of1% nd trends toward 3 billion by the end of the sec-ond half of this century. Of this number 65% (at pres-ent approximately 1% illion people) are chronicallyund.ernourishedl, and one third of them (at present #of a billion people) are doomed to early demise dueto conditions which could be altered or eliminatedwithin the present scope of technology,-specifically,that area of technology comprising the full ramifka-tions of the building arts, which now contains thenegatives or blanks which match the lethal factors.Relative to this premise, Nehru speaking recently inChicago, U. . A. said "it is folly to attribute the dis-quietude of the orient to ideological pressures".Nehru went on to point ou t that the de-energized anddoomed are prey to any political shift of the wind thatmight promise arrest of their fate.

At present all the world's industrial, or surfaced,processed and reprocessed functional tonnage ( theIndustrial Logistics) is preoccupied in the service ofone quarter of the world's population though 100% redirectly or indirectly involved in its procurementprocessing and transportation.

Historically, the trend of those to be served by in-

comprehensive designing*

*A talk given before the Faculty Club of the Massa-chusetts Institute of Technology, January 19, 1950.1 American Forestry Monthly, November 1949.

dustrialization is O%+100%. The problem then isnot one of countering the trend but of acceleratingit exquisitely.

All the politician can do regarding the problem isto take a fraction of tha t inadequate ratio of supplyfrom one group and apply it to another withoutchanging the over-all ratio. The politician can ofcourse recognize and accept the trend rather thanoppose it, but this does not accelerate it, that is, inadequate degree to arrive at a solution in our dayand generation,-and more importantly before dead-line of the doomed.

All that money can do is shower paper bills ofdigits on the conflagration. Relative denominationsneither decrease or increase the velocity of combus-tion.

How, and by whom if at all, may the problem besolved? Scientists are often charged with the task, butscientists as a class (irrespective of their proclivitiesas individuals) do not function in the comprehensivecapacity, they function as specialists in taking theuniverse apart to isolate and inventory its simplestbehavior relationships. Engineers function as invokedspecialists in reproducing satisfactory interactions offactors ascertained as 'satisfactory' by past experienceand a wealth of behavior measurement. Both engi-neers and politicians would lose their credit by societyif they incorporated the unprecedented in wholesalemanner.

We hear and read frequently in scientific and phil-osophic journals of the desirability for ways in whichproblems of universe may once more be approachedby comprehensive and scientific principles.

A N e w Social In i t iat ive 4There emerges the need for a new social initiativewhich is not another function or specialization but isan integral of the sum of the product of all specializa-tions, i.e., the Comprehensive Designer.

The Comprehensive Designer is preoccupied withanticipation of all men's needs by translation of theever-latest inventory of their potentials. Thus he mayquickly effect the upping of the performance-per-pound of t h e world's industr ial logistics in four-foldmagnitude through institution of comprehensive re-design incorporating all of the present scientific po-tentials that would otherwise be tapped only for pur-poses of warfaring, defensively or offensively.

In view of our myriad of performance-per-pound-advances of multifold degree (in contrast to percent-age degrees) typified by pounds of rubber tire uppedin performance from 1,000 miles to 30,000 miles ex-pectancy without poundage increase (yet with com-plete chemical, though invisible, transformation) orof communication advance from one message to 250concurrent messages per unit of cross-section of cop-Der wire (and both of these multifold advances have


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comprehensive designing/fuller 19it is seen as a meager technical problem to consideradvancing the over-all efficiency of worldwide indus-trial and service logistics fourfold (to serve 100%of,the population).

SOME MA Y TEND to underestimate the comprehen-sive nature of the problem, saying the people are thusand we have the land capacity to raise thefood. This conception voiced by the theoretical

or casual observer is without benefit oflogistic experience. It is not just a matte r of raisingfood but getting food to people, anywhere from zeroto 25,000 miles distant. And then it is not just amatter of getting food to people zero to 25,000 milesaway-it is a matter of getting it there at certainvelocities; and it is not just a matter of getting it thereat certain velocities, but it is a mat ter of gett ing it thereon schedules in certain conditions, conditions ofnourishing content, ~alatability nd vital preservation.And even then it is not a matter of success concerningall the preceding conditions, for the dumping of ayear's food supply in f ront of a helpless familyhuddled on the street-curb is but an unthinkabletragedy. The maggots appear in hours. And onceagain the continuing energy controls providing pro-gressive freezes, heatings, etc. cannot be effected byr"-frigeratorsand stoves dumped in the street alongwith a year's tonnage of food. Obviously a world con-tinuity of scientific-industrial controls resultant uponcomprehensive and technical redesign is spelled-outas the irreducible minimum of solution.

For those who think that this minimum can beobtained through legislative enactment by the politi-cian or by the establishment of new dollar credits andwh o are forgetful that the total world tonnage is al-ready preoccupied with service of only 25% of theworld-~eople,t is to be noted that the economic-approach is at present being voiced by thepress in conjunction with the historically unprece-dented water-shortages of the great U. S. metropoli,New york and Los Angeles.--These are not problems unique to those cities, but'~P tor nat ic f the trend of the great industrial inter-achons. The economic-statistical solution voiced byPoliticians and the news proposes further en-

croachments into the watershed origins through thererouting of waters otherwise destined to lessercenters.

Ergo: typical qu'estion asked by the ComprehensiveDesigner is: what do people want the water for? Theyare using 1 00 gallons per day per capita, consumingonly one gallon for their vital processes while em-ploying 99 gallons to dunk themselves and gadgetsand to act as a l iquid conveyor system of specks of dirtto the sea. We note that scientists do not need waterto dunk their instruments in, nor industrialists to dunktheir machinery in. Are there not superior ways toeffect many of the end purposes involving no waterat all, and where water is found to be essential, canit not be separated out after its combining functionsand systematically recirculated as chemically pure,sterilized, 'sweet' and clear, and with low energyexpense or even an improved energy balance-sheetas a result of comprehensive redesign?

THE SPECIALIST IN comprehensive design is anemerging synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, ob-jective economist and evolutionary strategist. Hebears the same relationship to society in the new in-teractive continuities of worldwide industrializationthat the architect bore to the respective remote inde-pendencies of feudal society.

The architect of 400 years ago was the compre-hensive harvester of the of the realm. Thelast 400 years have witnessed the gradual fadeout offeudalism and gradual looming of what will eventu-ally be full world-industrialization,-when all peoplewill produce for a11 people in an infinity of interact ingspecialized continuities. The more people served byindustrialization, the more efficient it becomes.Positive Constituents of Industry

In contrast to the many negative factors inherentin feudalism, such as debt, fear, ignorance and aninfinite variety of breakdowns and failures inevitableto dependence on the vagaries of nature, industrializa-tion trends to "accentuate the positive and eliminatethe negative" &st by measuring nature and convert-ing the principles discovered in the measurements to

mastery and anticipation of the vagaries. Day andnight,'winter and summer, fair weather or bad, timeand distance are mastered. Productive continuitiesmay be maintained and forwardly scheduled. Thereare three fundamental constituents of industry; allare positive.

The first consists of the aspect of energy as mass,inventoried as the 92 primary chemical elementswhich constitut e earth and its enclosing film of ever-alternating liquid-gaseous sequence.

The second fundamenta l component of industryconsists of energy but in a second and two-fold aspect,i.e.: (a ) energy as radiation and (b) energy as graui-tation, of both of which we are in constant receiptfrom the infinite cosmic fund. Third and most im-portant component of the industrial equa tion is theintellect-factor which secretes a continually amplify-ing advantage in experience-won knowledge.

Complex-component number one cannot wear out.The original chaotic disposition of its 92 chemicalelements is gradually being converted by the indus-trial principle to orderly separation and systematicdistribution over the face of earth in structural ormechanical arrangements of active or potential lever-age-augmentation. Component number two, cosmicenergy, cannot be exhausted.

Constituent number three not only improves withuse but is interactively self-augmenting.

Summarizing, components No. 1 and No. 2 cannotbe lost or diminished and No. 3 increases; net resultinherent gain. Inherent gain is realized in physicaladvantage of forward potential (it cannot be articu-lated backwards; it is mathematically irreversible).Thus, industrial potential is schematically directionaland not "randomly" omni-directional. Thus, the "life"activity as especially demonstrated by man repre-sents an anti-entrop ic phase of the transformations ofnon-losable universal energy.

THE ALL-POSITIVE PRINCIPLE of industry paradoxi-cally is being assimilated by man only through emer-gent expedients,-adopted-only in emergency be-cause of his preponderent fixation in the direction of

(cont. on page 22, col. 2)


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world energy/fuller 21X OF WORLD'S

NAME OFMAP PIECE

ASIAEUROPE

AFRICA AND MEDIT. WORLDNORTH AMERICASOUTH AMERICA

CENTRAL AMERICAALL OTHERS

POPULATION1940 1950

% OF WORLDPOPULATION

1940 1950ENERGY SLAVES POPULATION

% OF WORLD'SENERGY SLAVES

1940 1950

ENERGY SLAVESIn Tarmr of SLAVES PER HUMANSHuma n Equlvalan tr PER AREAAs Shown on Mapl In Round Numbers

The map on the opposite p age is a d ~ r n a x i o n rojection.First ~ublishedn Life, March 194 3, the dymaxion projec-tion is the first and only projection to receive a U.S.A.atent. Through its use, one may survey the wllole sur-Face of the earth with no visible distor tion. This is to saythat if direct comparison is made of the shapes and roportional size of the lan d and water masses with tl ei;counterparts on the surf ace of a world-globe, no physicaldifference will be detected. The re is deformat ion but itis only mathematically detectable. Because the dymaxionmap's longitude and lati tude grid is develope d after I ~ S.great circle grid projection, the poles need not be givenS)[mmetrical position on the projecte d m ap. As th e greatcrick grid may be freely oriented upon the sphere beforePro~ection,t is possible to arrange th at the sinuses (o pen-lngs in the stretched-out earth "skin") all occur in the oneO continuous ocean. This makes possible the particulararrangement of linked-together cont inental masses, with-Out breaks in their contours, completely surroun ded bythe "ocean".

Because one can see all the world at once (impossible.a globe), without visible distortion of its arts, anyvisual representations of statistics? data arefree of the false impressions usually obtained by lookingat non-distorted proportional form s against a distortedbackground.The special statistical data superimposed on the lnap isfurnished b the lnetallic beads which appear in twocategories of arrangement.-Th& first consists of relative ly short stran ds of beads!uperlm~osed upon those triangles and squares contain-

lng the respective portions of th e world's population. Th e

othe r main cate ory is comprised of plaited coils ofmetallic beads ?aced outside the surfaces of the mapwith their uncoi7ed ends leading to the appropriate areaof the map to which they refer.The first category of short strands contains 100 beadsaltogether. Each bead represents 22,500,000 humans or 1%of the world's population taken at 2,250,000,000 for 1950.As it will be seen, the particular square of the maplogically referred to as "Asia" contains 50 beads because50%of the world's population live in the area represented.The 1,125,000,000 humans of "Asia" do not live reciselyalong the line where the beads lie. The curve1 ine ofbeads only roughly approximates their line of position.On the triangle which contains most of Europe andmay therefore be called "Europe", tllere are 24 beadsbecause 24% of the hum an population live in that area.It will be noted tha t a portion of land which we are usedto thinking of as "Europe" is contained in the particularsquare which might b e quickly identified as "Africa"because it contains a proximately all of Africa but alsohappens to contain &e "Mediterranean world", tha isItaly, Greece, Southern France and Spain, Asia Mhorand Arabia: to wit, all of the countries south of the largeearth fault which we ap roximately associate with theline of Pyrenees-Alps an$ Caucasus mountains. This isquite a natural separation as this "Mediterranean world"is historically a world apart from the trian'qle whicb con-stitutes the later development known as Europe. Thesquare containing Africa and the "Mediterranean world"has 1 2 beads superimposed as it contains 12 % of the

world's population.

In like manner, the sq uare comprising "North America"shows 8 beads superimposed, and the square identifiedby "South America" has 4 beads. The triangle identifiableas "Central America" has 1 bead.So far we have accounted for 9 9 beads. One bead ismissing because all the peoples in all the other 6 rianglesand 2 squares together constitute less than 1%of theworld population.We are customarily impressed with the large aggregateof world's population repre sente d by "Europe" and "Asia",for these two pieces alo ne contain 74% of the world'spopulation. The diminutive number of 8 on the "NorthAmerican" continent and the additional 5 of the othe rAmericas (totali ng 13) a proxim ately balances "Africa's"12%on the other wing o ft he map.Cate ory two of the superimposed data, the plaitedcoils wgose ends lead to th e res ective areas whose datathey modify, com letely alters tf e significance of the in-formation g le an el from category one. There are 3800metallic beads in the 5 plaited coils. This is because thesebeads represent what might most appropriately be calledthe "energy slaves" serving man, - and outnumber 38times the man population which they serve.An "energy slave" is determined as follows:In addition to the energy s ent from his metabolicincome in "working" his own one man in one 8hour day can do approximately 1 0 000 foot pounds ofwork. A foot ound of work equals the amount of energyrequired to lig one pound one foot vertically. This addi-

tional work might be called his "net advantage" in dealing


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22 fuller/comprehensive designingwith environment. The "net advantage" potentially to begained by each human each year, working 8 hours eachof 250 days per year, is 37%million foot pounds.

Stated with a probable error of less than lo%, he worldconsumption of energy from mineral fue l (coal, oil, $)and water ower for the present year (1950) wil be80% quin tdon foot pounds (80,156,250,000,000,000,000foot pounds ). Assuming man's efficiency in convertinghis gross energy consumption into work to average anover-all 4%, he will net therefrom 3% quintillion(3,206,205,000,000,000,000) foot pounds.

Dividing this figure by 37%million foot pounds (eachman's net annual energy adva ntage), we receive thefigure 85% billion man year equivalents of work beingdone for him. The 855 billion man equivalents we willcall 85%billion "energy slaves".85;: billion energy slaves =38 energy slaves per capita2%billion world populationHowever, these energy slaves were not divided upequally in their service to each man on the face of earthas the above tables will show. Marked contrasts areto be seen in the table, - e.g, each of the 180 million"North American" inhabitants is served by 348 energyslaves (1400 per family) while each of the inhabitants of"Asia" is now limited to the services of 2 energy slaves.

To further appreciate the significance of this table, itmust be noted that "energy slaves", though doing onlythe foot pound equivalent of humans, are enormouslymore effective because they can work under conditionsintolerable to man, e.g. 5000" fahrenheit, no sleep, tenthousandths of an inch tolerance, can see at one millionmagnifications of man's vision, 400,000 pounds per squareinch sinuousity, 186,000 miles per second alacrity, etc.What is the world energy picture? North America,though running out of its petroleum resources, has do-mestic mineral fuel resources for 1000 years at presentrate of consumption. Despite this energy wealth, it willtrend after a few decades toward less energy consump-tion while upping standard of living through increasedtechnical efficiency of energy use, with net energy for

exporting, a condition already obtaining in many of itsabove-and-below-grade mineral resources and industrialproducts and services.World petroleum resources will gain but will be aug-mented by other mineral fuel resources to approximatethe same per capita wealth for rest of world as is nowknown to exist in North American continent.World per capita consumption will trend to equivalenceof North America by end of century with world equiva-lence in standard of living. World population trends to 3billion by end of century, and even if trending to 4 billionby end of 21st century, world wide man may continueto up his standard of living indefinitely (without recourseto atomic power-his capital account)-through 16% uc-cess in converting sun energy receipts by metabolic proc-esses throughout the arable, temperate and tropic areas.

(cod. rom page 19)tradition. Backing up into his future, man romanticallyappraises the emergent dorsal sensations in the nega-tively parroted terms of his ancestors' misadventures.

Essence of the principle of industry is the prin-ciple of synergy (Miriam Webster: "Cooperative ac-tion of discrete agencies such th at the total effect isgreater than the sum of two or more effects takenindependently"). Th e principle is manifested both inthe inorganic and organic. Th e alloying of chromeand nickel and steel provides greater tensile strengththan that possessed by any of its constituents or bythe constituents in proportional addition. Three ormore persons by specialized team work can d o workfar in excess of th e work of thr ee independently op-erating men. Surprisingly, and most contradictory tothe concept of feuda l ignorance, the indust rial chain'sstrength is not predicated on its weakest link. Sostrong is the principle that i t grows despite a myriadof superficially failing links! In f act the re are no con-tinuous "links" in industry or elsewhere in universebecause the atomic compon ents are,-interiorly, spa-tially discontinuous.

The strength of "industry" as with the strength ofthe "alloyn occurs through t he cocentric enmeshmentof the respective atoms. I t is as if two non-iden ticalconstellations of approximately th e same number ofstars each were inserted into the same space makingapproximately twice as many stars, but none touchingdue to the difference in patterns. The distances be-tween stars would be approximately halved. I t is thesame with alIoyed atoms whose combined energeticcohesion increases as the second power of the relativelinear proximities of the compon ent parts. Thoughthe parts do not "touch," their mass cohesive dynamicattraction follows the gravitational law of propor-tionment to second power of the distance apart ofcenters. Therefore, alloying strength is not additivearithmetically but is advantaged by gravity which asNewton discovered is inverseIy proportional to the"square" .of the distance apart.

MAN HAS NOW completed the plumbing and hasinstalled all the valves to turn on infinite cosmicwealth. Looking to the past he wails, "How can I

afford to turn on th e valve? If I turn it on, somebody'sgoing to have to pay for itl" H e forgets that the billhas been prepaid by all men through all time, espe-cially by their faithfully productive investments ofinitiative. Th e plumbing could n ot have been realizedexcept through absolute prepayment of intellectuallyorganized physical work, invested in t he inherent po-tentials of nature.E poc ha l T r a ns f or m a t i ons

Not only is man continually doing more with less,-which is a principle of trend wh ich we will call"ephemeralization,"-a corollary of the principle of"synergy,"-but he is also demonstrating certain other/visible trends of an epochal nature. Not only does hecontinually increase literacy but he continually affordsmore years of more advanced study to more people.As man becomes master of the machine-and machinesare introduced to carry on every kind of physicalwork with increased precision, effectiveness andvelocity,-his skilled crafts, formerly intermittentlypatronized, graduate from labor status to continuityof employment as research and development techni-cians. As man is progressively disemployed as a quan-tity production muscle-and-reflex machine, he be-comes progressively reemployed in the rapidly in-creasing army of research and development,-or ofproduction-ina uguratin g engineering-or of educa-tional and recreational extension, as plowed-backincrement of industrialization.

Product a nd service production of any one item ofindustry trends to manipulation by one man for themany through push-button and dial systems. Whileman trends to increasing specialized function in anti-cipatory and positive occupations of production, healso trends to comprehensive function as consumer.Because the principle of industry improves as thenumber of people i t serves is increased, it also im-proves in terms of the increase of the number of func-tions of the individual to which it is applied and italso improves in terms of its accelerated use.

THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE history of industraliza-tion to date man has taken with alacrity to the pre-occupation of the specialist on the production side of


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comprehensive designing/fuller 23the ledger, but the amplif ications of the functions ofthe individual as comprehensive consumer have beenwretched and jerked and suffered into tentative andawkward adoption in the mumbo-jumbo and failure-complex of obsolete feudal economics. Up to yester-day man was unaware of his legacy of infinite cosmicwealth. Somewhere along the line society was con-vinced that wealth was emanating from especiallyordained mortals to whom it should be returned peri-odically for mystical amplification. Also with feudalfixation man has looked to th e leaders of the com-mercial or political states for their socio-economicreadjustments,-to the increasingly frequent "emerg-encies."

Throughout these centuries of predominant ignor-ance and vanity the inherently comprehensive-think-ing artist has been so competent as to realize that hiscomprehensive thoughts would only alienate himfrom the economic patronage of those who success-fully exploited each backing up into the future. Theexploiters, successively successful, have ever at-tempted and in vain to anchor or freeze the dynamicexpansion at the particular phase of wealth genera-tion which they had come to monopolize.

The fool-hardy inventors and the forthright pros-pectors in humble tappings of greater ~ot en ti al s avebeen accounted the notable failures. Every industrialsuccess of man has been built on a foundation ofvindictive denouncement of the founders.

Thus the comprehending artist has learned to sub-limate his comprehensive proclivities and his hereticforward-looking,-toward engagement of the obvious-ly ripening potentials on behalf of the commonwealth.The most successful among the artists are those whohave effected their comprehensive ends by indirec-tion and progressive disassociations. SO skillful havethe artists of the last centuries been that even their

apprentices have been constrained to cele-brate only the non-utilitarian aspects of the obviousvehicles adroitly employed by the effective artists to

their not so obvious but all important burden.THUS THE LEGEND and tradition of a "~ ur e" rt or

a "pure" science as accredited preoccupation have

grown to "generally accepted" proportion. The seem-ingly irrelevant doings of the pu re scientist of recentdecades exploded in the face of the tradition of puremathematical abstraction at Alamagordo. No onecould have been more surprised than the rank andfile of professional "pure" scientists. The resu lts wereimplicit in the undertakings of artist-scientists whosenames are in the dim forefront or are anonymous inthe limbo of real beginnings. How grea t and exultanttheir secret conceptioking must have been!The TimeHas Come

Now the time has arrived for the artist to come outfrom behind his protective coloring of adopted ab-stractions and indirections. World society, frustratedin its reliance upon the leaders of might, is ready tobe about-faced to step wide-eyed into the obviousadvantages of its trending. Ergo-the emergence ofcomprehensive training for specialists in the hus-bandry of specialists and th e harvesting of the in-finite commonwealth.

Will the comprehensive designer, forthrightlyemergent, be as forthrightly accepted by the authori-ties of industrialization and s tate? If they are accepted,what are the &st-things-first to which they mustattend?

The answer to the first question is YES. They willbe accepted by the industrial authority because thelatter has recently shifted from major preoccupationwith exploiting original resource to preoccupationwith keeping the "wheels" which they manage turn-ing,-now tha t the original inventory of "wheels," i.e.tools in generar has been realized from out original-resource. Though original resource-exploiters stillhave great power, that power will diminisha as themines now existing above grade, in highly concen-trated "use" forms (yet in rapidly obsoleting originaldesign), become the preponderant source of the an-nual need. Severe acceleration in the trend to increaseof performance per pound of inves ted material nowcharacterizes all world-industry. With no im~ortantincrease in the rate of annua l receipt from originalmines, the full array of mechanics a nd .structure

a See New York Times, June 17,1949, age 2..

requisite to amplifying the industrial complex, from itspresent service o approximately one-fourth the world'spopulation to serve all the world's population , maybe accomplished by the scrap "mined" from the pro-gressively obsoleting structures and mechanics. World-industrial management will be progressively depen-dent upon the comprehensive designer to acceIeratethe turning of his wheels by design acceleration. Eachtime the wheels go round the infinite energy wealthof cosmos is impounded within the ever greate r re-ceptive capacities of the 92 element inventory ofearth and those who manage the wheels can makeoriginal entry on their books of the new and expand-ing wealth increments even as the farmer gains cosmicenergy wealth in his seasoned cycles.

Answer to whether th e designer will be accreditedby political leadership has been made. Political leader-ship in both world camps has announced to the worldof potential consumers their respective intents to "up"the standard of living of all world peoples by "convert-ing the high technical potential to account throughdesign."

Only the designer can accomplish this objective.Legislative mandate a nd dollar diplomacy cannot buythe realization.

As first of the first things, t he designer must providenew and advanced standards of living for all peoplesof the world. He must progressively house and re-house two billion and one-quarter people in estab-lishments of advanced physical control. Th e mechan-ically serviced sheltering must be a continuity of roofs,stationary and mobile, sufficient to allow for man'sincreasing convergent-divergent interactions of tran-sciency or residence, of work, play or development,interconnecting every central of the world and pene-trating to autonomous dwelling facility of most ad-vanced standard even in the remotest of geography.The logistics of this greatest ph ase of industrializationmust impound cosmic-energy wealth, within the in-ventory of 92 chemical elements, to magnitudes, notonly undreamed of, but far more importantly, ade-quate to the advancing needs of all men. Implicit isman's emancipation from indebtedn ess to else butintellect.

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6490 Comprehensive Designing