Fuller strongly believed one of the primary failures of mankind was what he determined to be a general human disadvantage in the ability to control our environment. [1] Specifically, humans suffered from overly priced and grossly inadequate living conditions. Houses were not just objects or forms of shelter but phenomena meant to be studied which in turn would better the human condition [6]. Fuller eventually came to the conclusion that housing was a combination of two elements: the autonomous housing of utilities and the housing of people, with the former supporting the latter. [2] The traditional house, to Fuller, did not support the dual relationship of house and occupant. Influenced by the industrial progress seen in the automotive and aeronautical industries, the most beneficial form of shelter would be:

1. Lightweight
2. Strong
3. Transportable
4. Had a low cost of construction and was easily replicable for mass production
5. Tornado resistant

These ideas would be the foundation for the 4D (Dymaxion) House prototype.

 

One of Buckminster Fuller’s initial housing experiments, a predecessor of the 4D Dymaxion house, was his hexagonal 4D Lightful Tower. Modeling Le Corbusier, Fuller promoted building up instead of out so rooms in the tower were stacked vertically on top of one another instead of next to one another as in a standard floor plan. The Lightful Towers were similar to the modern apartments we see today, the only difference was each tower was conceived as a single-family dwelling unit. The 10 deck towers hung from a central mast and ran off an independent power grid and sewage system housed on one of the floors. [5] The bottom floor even hosted a swimming pool. For convenience. the tower could be constructed in a single day, after being dropped off by a zeppelin.

In 1928, Fuller’s ideas on housing came to fruition when he presented his design for the 4D Dymaxion house, a reference to the fourth dimension, to the American Insitute of Architects and was swiftly rejected. [3] The AIA did not share his dream of a replicable mass-produced housing system. Like his Lightful Towers concept, the 4D house was comprised of an elevated hexagonal structure surrounding a central umbrella-like mast supported by cables anchored to the ground. It was forty feet high and fifty feet in diameter with a domed roof.  The structure weighed around 6000 lbs and was entered into by an elevator located in the mast. Electricity was provided by a diesel tank located under the mast. The home also had a recreation deck, optimal for sun-bathing. The walls of the structure were constructed from casein, a type of vegetable waste. The entire exterior of the house was constructed of aluminum, one of the only materials Fuller decided met the aforementioned performance criteria he had set.

Inside, the house had two bedrooms, each with a bathroom, revolving dish closets and a built-in incinerator in the kitchen, a compressed air cleaner, pneumatic beds, and semicircular coat closets. [7] Other interior features included automatic doors, a centralized cleaning system, built-in furniture, and appliances integrated into the house. Fuller firmly asserted the integrated appliances would significantly reduce the amount of time spent on housework leading to additional time spent recreating. For example, the casein walls also served as Ovolving shelves which rotated vertically until one could reach the appropriate item through a hole in the wall. [8]. The built-in washer dryer could also put your clothes away. [4] Windows in the house never had to be opened, as one of the primary interior features was a comprehensive system of climate control which was so efficient one needn’t even wear clothes while relaxing inside.

The 4D House was introduced to the public in 1929 when it was featured in a modernist furniture exhibition put on by the Marshall Fields in Chicago. Waldo Warren, a Public Relations specialist for Marshall Fields, seeking a catchier name for the 4D house worked with Fuller to coin a new name which better described  Fuller’s ideas behind his invention. Combining a series of keywords the two came up with the words dynamic, maximum, and tension to describe the tensioned cables which supported the structure. The three words were then shortened to dy-max-ion, and 4D became Dymaxion.

 

By: Tara Seaver

[1] Fuller, Buckminster R. and Robert Marks, The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller (New York: AnchorPress/DoubleDay, 1960), 16.

[2] Michael J. Auer, “The Dymaxion Dwelling Machine”, in Yesterday’s  Houses of  Tomorrow, ed. H. Ward Jandl (Washington D.C.: The Preservation Press, 1991), 86.

[3] Frederico Neder, Fuller Houses: R. Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Dwellings and Other Dymaxion Adventures (Zurich: Lars Muller, 2008), 12.

[4] Frederico Neder, Fuller Houses: R. Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Dwellings and Other Dymaxion Adventures (Zurich: Lars Muller, 2008), 38.

[5] Cole Gerst, Buckminster Fuller: Poet of Geometry (Portland: Option G Visual Communication, 2013), 26.

[6] Frederico Neder, Fuller Houses: R. Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Dwellings and Other Dymaxion Adventures (Zurich: Lars Muller, 2008), 15.

[7] Michael J. Auer, “The Dymaxion Dwelling Machine”, in Yesterday’s  Houses of  Tomorrow, ed. H. Ward Jandl (Washington D.C.: The Preservation Press, 1991), 84.

[8] Michael J. Auer, “The Dymaxion Dwelling Machine”, in Yesterday’s  Houses of  Tomorrow, ed. H. Ward Jandl (Washington D.C.: The Preservation Press, 1991), 83.