Dymaxion House as installed in Henry Ford Museum

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Dymaxion House was developed byinventor and architect Buckminster Fuller toaddress several perceived shortcomings withexisting homebuilding techniques. Fullerdesigned several versions of the house atdifferent times — all of them factorymanufactured kits, assembled on site, intendedto be suitable for any site or environment and touse resources efficiently. A key designconsideration of the design was ease ofshipment and assembly.

Fuller created the term Dymaxion, aportmanteau of the words dynamic, maximum,

and tension,[1] to describe many of hisinventions.

1 History

2 Description

3 Criticism

4 See also

5 References

6 External links

The Dymaxion was completed in 1930 after two years of development, and redesigned in 1945. BuckminsterFuller wanted to mass-produce a bathroom and a house. His first "Dymaxion" design was based on the designof a grain bin. During World War II, the U.S. Army commissioned Fuller to send these housing units to the

Persian Gulf.[2] In 1945, science-fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein placed an order for one to be delivered to Los

Angeles, but the order was never filled.[3]

The Siberian grain-silo house was the first system in which Fuller noted the "dome effect." Many installationshave reported that a dome induces a local vertical heat-driven vortex that sucks cooler air downward into adome if the dome is vented properly (a single overhead vent, and peripheral vents). Fuller adapted the later unitsof the grain-silo house to use this effect.

The final design of the Dymaxion house used a central vertical stainless-steel strut on a single foundation.

Dymaxion house - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_house

1 of 4 7/14/2014 3:29 PM

Interior of Dymaxion House showing structural

details. Visible are the partially assembled

aluminum ceiling, struts and exterior skin as well as

single central post which supports the entire

structure and carries utilities and plumbing.

Structures similar to the spokes of a bicycle-wheel hung down from this supporting the roof, while beamsradiating out supported the floor. Wedge-shaped fans of sheet metal aluminum formed the roof, ceiling andfloor. Each structure was assembled at ground level and then winched up the strut. The Dymaxion houserepresented the first conscious effort to build an autonomous building in the 20th century.

It was a prototype proposed to use a packaging toilet, water storage and a convection-driven ventilator built intothe roof. It was designed for the stormy areas of the world: temperate oceanic islands, and the Great Plains ofNorth America, South America and Eurasia. In most modern houses, laundry, showers and commodes are themajor water uses, with drinking, cooking and dish-washing consuming less than 20 liters per day. TheDymaxion house was intended to reduce water use by a greywater system, a packaging commode, and a"fogger" to replace showers. The fogger was based on efficient compressed-air and water degreasers, but withmuch smaller water particles to make it comfortable.

Two Dymaxion houses were prototyped – one indoor (the"Barwise" house) and one outdoor (the "Danbury" house).No Dymaxion house built according to Fuller's intentionswas ever constructed and lived in. The only two prototypesof the round, aluminum house were bought by investorWilliam Graham, together with assorted unused prototypingelements as salvage after the venture failed. In 1948,Graham constructed a hybridized version of the DymaxionHouse as his family's home; the Grahams lived there intothe 1970s. Graham built the round house on his lake frontproperty, disabling the ventilator and other interior features.It was inhabited for about 30 years, although as an extensionto an existing ranch house, rather than standing alone asintended by Fuller. In 1990, the Graham family donated thishouse, and all the component prototyping parts, to TheHenry Ford Museum. A painstaking process was used toconserve as many original component parts and systems aspossible and restore the rest using original documentationfrom the Fuller prototyping process. It was installed indoorsin the Henry Ford Museum in 2001 with a full exhibit.

Since there was no evidence of the crucial internalrain-gutter system, some elements of the rain collectingsystem were omitted from the restored exhibit. The roof wasdesigned to wick water inside and drip into the rain-gutterand then to the cistern, rather than have a difficult-to-fit,perfectly waterproof roof.

There was to be a waterless packaging toilet that deftlyshrink-wrapped the waste for pickup for later composting. During the prototyping process, the idea for thepackaging toilet was quickly replaced by a conventional septic system because the packaging plastic was notavailable. Other features worked as advertised, notably the heating, and the passive air conditioning system,based on the "dome effect."

Dymaxion house - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_house

2 of 4 7/14/2014 3:29 PM

U.S. Patent 2,220,482

(http://www.google.com/patents

/US2220482), Prefabricated

bathroom, by Richard

Buckminster Fuller, issued 1940

The inhabitants of the much-modified version of the house said that the

bathroom[4] was a particular delight. The bathroom consisted of twoconnected stamped copper bubbles, built as four nesting pieces. The bottompiece is fully plated in tin/antimony alloy and the top half is painted. Eachbubble had a drain. No area had a radius of less than four inches (10 cm), toaid cleaning. The commode, shower, bathtub and sink were molded into thestructural shell in one piece. One bubble contained a step-up ergonomicbathtub and shower, high enough to wash children without stooping, butjust two steps (16 inches / 40 cm) up. The oval tub had the controlsmounted on the inside left of the entrance to the oval tub. The other bubblewas the bathroom proper with commode and sink. The ventilation for thebathroom was a large silent fan under the main sink, which kept odors awayfrom people's noses. All lighting was totally enclosed. To prevent fogging,the mirror faced into the medicine chest, which was ventilated by the fan. Aplastic version of the bathroom was available intermittently until the

1980s.[5]

The large wrap-around windows and lightweight structures were popularwith the children, who crawled on the windowsill, and twanged the bicycle-wheel-style main struts.

Criticisms of the Dymaxion Houses include its supposed inflexible design which completely disregarded local

site and architectural idiom, and its use of energy-intensive materials such as aluminum,[6] rather thanlow-energy materials, such as adobe or tile. Fuller chose aluminium for its light weight, great strength, andlong-term durability, arguably factors that compensate for the initial production cost. Aluminum was also alogical choice if the homes were to be built in aircraft factories, which, since World War II had ended, hadsubstantial excess capacity.

The Wichita House was a project Fuller accepted during World War II as an attempt to produce cost-effectivedwellings for everyone. The project continued to develop the technological concept of the Dymaxion House,now incorporating a round floor plan instead of a hexagonal one. The reactions to the prototype were

extraordinarily positive; nevertheless it was not produced industrially.[7] Fuller, a consummate perfectionist, felthe could improve the design and was dissatisfied with the prototype. He refused to begin production rather than

allowing the "unfinished" design to be used.[8]

Autonomous building

Lustron house

Futuro house

Dymaxion car

Dymaxion map

Geodesic dome

Prefabricated home

Yurt (similar dwelling shape)

Dymaxion house - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_house

3 of 4 7/14/2014 3:29 PM

^ Sieden, Lloyd Steven (2000). Buckminster Fuller's Universe (http://books.google.com/books?id=rG__1rhIzE0C&

pg=PA132&dq=Dymaxion+dynamic). Basic Books. p. 132. ISBN 978-0-7382-0379-9.

1.

^ "Buckminster Fuller: Dymaxion Deployment Unit" (http://web.archive.org/web/20090416134505/http:

//www.gsd.harvard.edu/studios/s97/burns/p_fullerd.html). Web.archive.org. 2009-04-16. Retrieved 2013-08-25.

2.

^ Patterson, William H. Robert A. Heinlein: Learning Curve, Volume 1, p. 371. Macmillan, 2010. ISBN

0-7653-1960-8

3.

^ U.S. Patent 2,220,482 (http://www.google.com/patents/US2220482) Prefabricated Bathroom, Richard Buckminster

Fuller, Issued Nov. 5, 1940

4.

^ Dymaxion Bathroom (http://www.bfi.org/about-bucky/buckys-big-ideas/dymaxion-world/dymaxion-bathroom)5.

^ Advanced Manufacturing Office: Aluminum (http://www1.eere.energy.gov/industry/aluminum)6.

^ "Dymaxion House" (http://users.design.ucla.edu/~djvmc/24/bucky/house.html). Users.design.ucla.edu. Retrieved

2013-08-25.

7.

^ "Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center - IDEAS + INVENTIONS: Buckminster Fuller and Black

Mountain College" (http://web.archive.org/web/20090115004344/http://blackmountaincollege.org/content/view/45

/60/). Web.archive.org. 2009-01-15. Retrieved 2013-08-25.

8.

The Dymaxion House on ArchDaily (http://www.archdaily.com/401528/ad-classics-the-dymaxion-house-

buckminster-fuller/)

Henry Ford Museum (http://www.thehenryford.org/exhibits/dymaxion/index.html) has restored the

prototype and installed it in the museum.

Time-The Dymaxion American (http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,875527,00.html)

Chu, Hsiao-Yun (2009). New Views on R. Buckminster Fuller. Stanford University Press.

ISBN 0-8047-6279-1.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dymaxion_house&oldid=605196158"

Categories: Prefabricated houses Buckminster Fuller Geodesic domes

Modernist architecture in the United States

This page was last modified on 21 April 2014 at 20:10.Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms mayapply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registeredtrademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

Dymaxion house - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_house

4 of 4 7/14/2014 3:29 PM