DESIGN STRATEGY by R. Buckminster Fuller

from "Utopia or Oblivion"

Relevant Notes taken from the article from Bill Paton, Solutioneer paton_bill@hotmail.com

-"Better than 99% of humanity's frustrations are occasioned by surprise encounters with the almost completely invisible evolutionary-transformation trendings of human ecology and the latter's environmental transformings."

-Two main and clearly differentiated modes of biological and zoological survival are STATIC (Static) and MOBILE (Dynamic). The biologically static are subjectively advantaged. The environment brings them what they need. The mobiles are objectively advantaged to "go" and get what they need or want.

-"Only one's own "personality" and life are ownable."

-"For only the last decade of all history has total physical and economic success for all humanity been conceded by science as feasible. Realization of this extraordinary potential is importantly frustrated, however, by several factors:"

To effect the successful transition of world society to the new "norm" of man as a physical and intellectual success can, and we hope will, be realized on Spaceship Earth through the idealism of youth, as implemented by the educational-process revolution....It is not a matter of looking ahead one or two generations. IT IS A MATTER OF MAKING MAN ON EARTH A CONTINUING SUCCESS--FOREVER.

We must ask "From whence will come the tools of conceptuality which will emancipate science and permit its assumption of the prime social, direct, conscious, sensorial responsibility?"

What can and will bring the world society's leaders and world society itself to comprehend its economic potential and its essential function in universe and to its successful performance of that function.

-A problem adequately stated is a problem fundamentally ripe and potential of solution.

BUCKY'S 40 QUESTIONS

First I refer you to my own attempts to make experience-founded-ergo scientifically definitive--answers to all 40 of the questions.


The results of these questions are developed into Bucky's Dominate Concepts:

DOMINATE CONCEPTS

Concept One: Universe
"Universe is the aggregate of all humanity's all time consciously apprehended and communicated experiences."
-Energy can be neither created nor destroyed.

Concept Two: Humanity
The human is not an accidental onlooker "who happened in on the 'Play of Life,' but an essential syntropic function of Universe."
-Unity is plural and at minimum two.
-Specialization is no longer appropriate.
-It is my intent to advantage all without depriving anyone.

Concept Three: Children
"Focus on new life. Since children are the hope of the future and 98% of the environment's positive or negative effects upon new life are wrought by age thirteen, it is obvious that effective work in advantaging life through environment can mainly be realized within the first thirteen years."

Concept Four: Teleology
Teleology by Bucky's definition means "the intuitive conversion by brain and mind of special case, subjective experiences into generalized principles...which permit the individual to reform the environment...so as to provide ultimately higher advantages for men" and to inspire others to do likewise.

DESIGN SCIENCE EVENT FLOW:

SUBJECTIVE: (Search, Research)
-Teleology
-Intuition
-Conception
-Apprehension
-Comprehension
-Experiment
-Feedback

Generalization

Objective Development
-Prototyping #1
-Prototyping #2
-Prototyping #3
-Production Design
-Production Modification

Reduction to Practice
-Tooling
-Production
-Distribution
-Installation
-Maintenance...Service

Regeneration
-Reinstallation
-Replacement
-Removal
-Scrapping
-Recirculation

Concept Five: Reform the Environment, Not Man.
Bucky's philosophy and strategy confine design initiative to reforming only the environment and never to emulate the almost universal attempts of humans to reform and restrain other humans by political actions, laws, and codes.

Concept Six: General Systems Theory
Using the generalized principles he has discovered, Bucky says "I always start all problem-solving with Universe, and thereafter subdivide progressively to identify a special local problem within the total of problems." He thus attacks it comprehensively and anticipatorily.

Concept Seven: Industrialization.
"Industrialization consists of tools". It involves "all experiences of all men everywhere in history." Bucky sees it as inherently comprehensive and omni-interrelated in respect to all humanity. And he believes that, though subsystems of it are run shortsightedly by selfishly motivated people, the whole works inadvertently towards ultimately providing all men with higher standards of living....Because energy plus know-how is wealth, "the integrating world industrial networks mean ultimate access of all humanity to the total operative commonwealth of Earth."
-Wealth cannot alter yesterday. It can only alter today and tomorrow.
-Energy cannot decrease. Knowledge can only increase.

Concept Eight: Design Science
Design Science is concerned "with the scheduling of the complex interaction of the general systems events of industrialization." The rapid advance of technology in one field- air transportation, for example - must be "comprehensively integrated with all other vastly accelerating environment relationship transformations." The rental service industry must be compounded with time-designing doubling and possibly tripling the environment-control capabilities.

Concept Nine: The Service Industry
"Humanity is gradually trending towards becoming Worldians." Therefore, the static appurtenances of life - houses, automobiles, even typewriters - will all be rented like telephones because of man's increasing mobility. Amplifying this thought in another article, Bucky foresees man's ability to deploy at will all over the earth and the solar system by means of autonomous structures made livable by our astronauts life-support 'black box'. And he adds, "Quite clearly, man, free to enjoy all of his planets...will also be swiftly outward bound to occupy even greater ranges of the universe."

Concept Ten: Ephemeralization
"The acceleration of doing more with less...will complete the task of providing enough for all humanity within another thirty-four years...despite political systems that deliberately divide society and set one group against another." Bucky believes that without the interference of political systems it could be done in twenty years.

Concept Eleven: Prime Design Initiative
Bucky believes that it is essential for the individual, invention-developing pioneer to maintain his economic initiative and not get tied up with the massive capital-cum-bureaucracy of large corporations, despite the leverage of their wealth. They only seemingly overwhelm the individual with their economic advantages in respect to investment capital, working capital, credit capital and influence.
-it is fatal for an invention-developing pioneer to own his own shop and tools because of overhead.
-It is fatal to build up any large staff dependent on any one economic product or focus.
-the lone individual has complete freedom from bureaucracy.

Concept Twelve: Self-Discipline
Instead of the obligation to make a living, Bucky substitutes the higher obligation of the individual's syntropic responsibility in Universe. He says " Do not mind if I am not understood as long as I am not misunderstood."
 


DESIGN SCIENCE CURRICULUM

A curriculum of design science includes:


Concept Thirteen: Comprehensive Coordination
Comprehensivity instead of specialization is Bucky's key to successful design competence. His foremost self-discipline is never to try to sell one of his ideas to others. He will just design and test it, and wait for others, who need it, to come to him. He only goes where he is asked to speak because, if you force your ideas on people they listen unwillingly, but if they ask you to speak to them - especially if they pay a high fee -"they are very receptive."
-the attempt to discipline myself to be an effective explorer in the realm of mastery of principles of comprehensive anticipatory design science.
-I assumed in 1917 that nature did not have separate departments for chemistry, mathematics, physics, biology, history etc.
-I am quite confident that I have discovered an importantly large area of arithmetical, geometrical ...vectorial coordinate system employed by nature itself. It is a triangular and tetrahedronal system. it uses 60 degree instead of 90 degree coordination.
Bucky incessantly engages in trying to make all his previous inventions obsolete by designing better ones.

Concept Fourteen: World Community and its Subcommunities
Bucky believes that Chapter Three of World History is just beginning, in which world man will realize his potential for success as a function of Universe through his accelerating mastery of "vast inanimate, inexhaustible energy sources combined with doing more with less."