Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1.1Permission to reprint various writings is gratefully acknowledged to the following publishers:
1.2 Introduction to Halo:
1.3 Omni-directional Halo Southern Illinois University Press Carbondale, Illinois
1.4 Wave Transformations of the City:
1.5 New York as a Focus of Energy ’The New York Guidebook’ Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1964.
Other Volumes in the Series
1.6(Other volumes in this series are:
1.7 Phase I, (1963) Document 1: Inventory of World Resources, Human Trends and Needs by R. Buckminster Fuller and John McHale
1.8 Phase I, (1964) Document 2: The Design Initiative by R. Buckminster Fuller)
1.9 World Resources Inventory Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Illinois U.S.A.
FOREWORD
1.10This document, the third publication in the ’World Design Science Decade, 1965-1975 series has been prepared for the VIII World Congress of the International Union of Architects to be held in Paris, July 1965. It should be read, therefore, in conjunction with the first two documents in this series – particularly, Document Three, "World Design Initiative" by R. Buckminster Fuller, which deals specifically with the ways in which students may assume the design initiative and which also outlines the overall conduct of generalized design science exploration.
1.11 Although this selection of the writings of Buckminster Fuller has been compiled primarily for the use of students participating in this world program, it may also be useful to the general reader as an introduction to certain aspects of his design philosophy which have tended to be overshadowed by his practical inventions and structural achievements.
1.12 The writings have been ordered in a manner which is intended to reflect the basic orientation suggested in the title, Comprehensive Thinking. As will be seen, this order proceeds from the whole to the particular–from considerations of how one may think about the larger comprehensible whole system to how one may apply such ’whole systems’ thinking to local and particular aspects of the system in the planning of environment for man.
1.13 Though the language of some of the texts may seem difficult at first approach, it should be borne in mind that one of our major problems in thinking today is the use of language systems which still represent a fixed structurally compartmentalized world view. The terms available to us for the expression of dynamic, rather than static, concepts are far from satisfactory. Fuller’s language is particularly representative of the ’transitional state (of the Western world) between the older, traditional, noun-centered culture and its present day, changing, verb-centered culture’. In his search for an adequately descriptive terminology he tends to employ concepts and usages from many different fields juxtaposed in ways which may be unfamiliar to those more customarily restrained within the vocabularies of particular disciplines.
1.14 Some brief notes on the specific texts may be useful at this point–
1.15 The Halo papers deal primarily with the exploration of the thinking process itself and provide a conceptual ’general systems’ model of thought, in terms of tuning, frequency modulation, and feedback operation as analogies of this comprehensive process.
1.16 The Halo concept represents the further development of Fuller’s ’Energetic and Synergetic Geometry’ towards a rational ’all energy behavior accounting’ system. An important aspect of the geometry is that it allows of conceptual modelability of many dynamic energy relationships whose behaviors are traditionally considered as not communicable in this way. Citations of the congruence of many of Fuller’s constructs and geometrical accounting procedures have particularly increased in recent years, i.e. in tissue and virus structures, in bio-molecular research generally, and in the study of fundamental particles.
1.17 These recent insights extend and amplify the postulates of the geometry into the area of a more generalized epistemological frame work.
1.18 Many similarities in conceptual approach already exists in various widely separated areas of enquiry where such modelability is being sought, e.g. the ’radex’ and ’circumplex’ figures employed in mathematical analyses in social scienceź, the ’biofilm’ approach in overall earth ecologyš structural relations in the electro-magnetic spectrumş. Though similar in ’form’ to such approaches the Halo concept is a more fundamental attempt to provide a ’structural tool’ for the elucidation of the widest range of complex phenomena relationships.
1.19 The Profile of the Industrial Revolution applies the conceptual organizing principles discussed in Halo to the historical development of man’s accumulated intellectual discoveries, their practical implementation into environ controlling techno- logies, and their cumulative effects on man’s overall ecology on earth.
1.20 Venus Proximity Day analyzes the ’local’ aspects of various social, economic, and political forces and the ways in which they may retard or accelerate comprehensive planning. Within this context the role or architecture and environment planning is dis- cussed in relation to industrialization.
1.21 An analogy is drawn which poses medicine as the prime discipline which deals comprehensively with all the internal metabolic processing of man, and discusses the new role of architecture and environment planning as the emergent comprehensive discipline which would deal in similar overall fashion with all the external metabolic pro- cessing of man.
1.22 Wave Transformations of the City examines New York as an urban center in terms of its cyclic growth patterns and discusses the ways in which we may analyze such organic growth as dynamic frequency-modulated wave phenomena.
1.23 The Prospects for Humanity is an example of comprehensive long-range thinking applied to the future extrapolation of various discernible trends in man’s present ecological patterning.
1.24 Geosocial Revolution represents a summation of all the above aspects of comprehensive, historical, ’local’, and long-range thinking, directed towards the specific problems of man’s present global dilemmas and their solution, through comprehensive redesign and redirection of the world’s industrial tool complexes toward the ’livingry’ revolution. Our present political and ideological impasse in relation to the various facets of the world geosocial revolution is discussed. It is emphasized that science and technology as key formative processes favor no one political ideology as against another and, indeed, that such formative forces alone maintain and forward man’s physical well being, without direct benefit of supporting ideological constructs.
1.25 In this ordered sequence the reader may choose alternative routes. If he wants to examine first the results of thinking comprehensively let him go first to Geo- social Revolution. If more concerned with the process of comprehensive thinking he should begin with Halo and work through the series of following chapters.
1.26 ź "Mathematical Thinking in the Social Sciences," Edited, F. L. Lazarsfield, Illinois, Free Press, 1954. š F. L. Kunz, The Film of Living Beauty, Main Currents in Modern Thought, Vol. 18,Oct. ’61. ş Time: Its Breadth & Depth in Biological Rhythm, J. J. Grebe, N. Y. Acad. Sc., Vol. 98, October, 1962.
1.27 The schematic diagram using the Halo conceptual structure to process man-shelter environment as a functional system is included here as a rough example of the operational use of the concept. The first major categories of the ’Universal Requirements of a Dwelling Advantage’ by Fullerź are laid out in terms of magnitude, frequency of occurence, etc. within the Halo system. Students may from this example, be able to devise ways of using Halo as a conceptual tool in organizing the interrelationships of many other problem areas. It might also be usefully applied in this manner to material in other chapters of the present work.
1.28 In general, within our present program, each of the texts will be found to have particular relevance to the comprehensive manner in which we must now approach world planning. The major problems confronting our global society are no longer amenable to local piecemeal solutions, but require such comprehensive confrontation. The statement of the problems alone requires that we deal with our world as a whole process, as an overall ecological system, within which man, his present requirements, and future trending must be viewed as part of the ongoing evolutionary development.
1.29 How can the student learn to think comprehensively about such large-scale processing? Little training in such thinking is given in our present educational systems. The assumption of any degree of comprehensivity tends to be suspect, when extreme specialization within the given range of academic divisions is still the prevailing educational goal. Yet, patently, no single human problem may be wholly solved within the province of any one academic discipline; even ’local’problems require for their consideration and solution the cooperative efforts of many such disciplines.
1.30 This selection, then, is offered as a guide towards such integrative thinking from the writings of a man who has attempted throughout his life and work to think consistently in such a comprehensive manner and to apply such thinking towards the practical solution of man’s environment problems.
1.31 An essential quality of Fuller’s philosophical orientation is that he views man’s entire relationship to universe as inseparable from man himself. Universe and man are not individually operating ’entities’ but complementary and interactive aspects of a whole process. He defines ’universe’ as ’the aggregate of all men’s consciously apprehended and communicated experience’. As total universe is perhaps the largest possible concept which man may attempt to comprehend, this premise enables one to come to terms with such a concept through the statement of how we may describe and measure it. Operationally such a premise enables us to deal with universe in definable and conceptual ways.
1.32 This may still seem far from the kind of comprehensive thinking required in the practical replanning of world facilities! However, the premise of ’universe’ as a describable structural pattern visible to, and experienced by us, at our local pattern level, is further refined by Fuller through his postulation of the two corollary aspects of universe–the synergetic and energetic. He defines synergy as ’the unique behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the behavior of their respective subsystems events’. The ’energetic’ aspect of universe represents the more directly observable separated out local behavior pattern–the subsystems events. In thinking about man’s relationship to his environment this avoids undue reliance and emphasis on the local and specialized pattern considered in isolation.
1.33 ź Document Two, The Design Initiative, R. B. Fuller, S.I.U.,1963 , Carbondale, Illinois,
1.34 from-(Universal Requirements Schedule) Doc. 2. The Design Initiative 1964, pp. 142-145
1.35 MACRO LEVEL UPPER MEDIAN LOWER MEDIAN DWELLING HUMAN ORGANISM micro
1.36 FREQUENCY | STRESS low | high medium | medium high | low
1.37 A. } Relationship = Performance B. criteria of ’DWELLING’
1.38 A. Tuning function of dwelling accomplished by structural shell and mechanics, i.e. temperature, lighting control, etc.
1.39 B. Tuning function of human organism accomplished by: skin, nervous system, internal organs, circulation system, etc.
1.40 ’Micro’ functions of human organism: psycho-physical factors as yet not determined, or irrelevant as too small or infrequent.
1.41 impinging energies { Cataclysmic Dangerous Inclement nb. may be expanded to include all sections of requirements.
1.42 nb. Based on the ’Omni Directional Halo’ concept of R.B. Fuller.
1.43 Further, in assuming an a priori structural order throughout, all physical events occur as interrelated energy patternswhether they are macro events at the level of galaxies, median events as social patterns, building systems or rainstorms, or micro events at the level of the atomic nucleus.
1.44 Within this scale, all man’s environmental transactionswhether building, sleeping, designing structures, or plowing a fieldform part of the total energy system. As defined out of his experience, it is a finite system in which energy may be neither lost nor gained, therefore the process within the system is one of interrelated and regenerative cycles of energy transformation. We cannot, in the strictest sense, deal with any local aspect of the system without taking into account the regenerative and synergetic aspects of the whole. If then, in planning for man’s requirements we take cognizance of such observable ’universal’ laws as have been found to operate in common throughout the scale, it is more probable that such planning will be on the right track.
1.45 For example, in the designing of ’shelter’ for man we may note that in these comprehensive terms we are locally re-arranging certain locally occurring energy events to our immediate and future advantage. The requirement ’shelter’ viewed comprehensively is seen not as traditional ’house’ but as an ’instrument’ which man may employ to adjust and control the local energy patterns impinging upon him, as a ’valving’ device which allows him to control, shunt, or redirect environment energies in preferred forms of frequency. It is viewed as an instrument, whose primary function is to allow man to ’tune in’ on any preferred range of facilities he may require. The end ’design’, by such definition, tends not to be the obtrusive and important feature but rather to be oriented towards functioning invisibly until called into direct play by the occupant. This leads not only to a strictly scientific ’energy’ accounting in the design of such environment systems but returns the responsibility for the end-use control of the system back to the individual user. Man is not to be provided with ’machines to live in’, but with such anticipatorily designed instruments as may allow him to adjust and control his environment to any individually preferred manner of living.
1.46 There may be noted even in such a briefly outlined example, that the comprehensive formulation of any particular aspect of man’s environ relation does lead to a considerable difference in the angle of attack on a given practical problem. The more comprehensive the statement of the problem, the more adequate and universally applicable its indicated solutions.
1.47 Within such comprehensive assumptions of the integral nature of environment processes, ’chemistry, biology, or art science technology, etc.’ and other separate field categories are merely local labels for various ways of organizing our experience of universe. They are all more or less convenient ways of packaging different aspects of an experience which is in itself comprehensivein which ’there are no discernible separate compartments in which nature functions differently the one from the other’. Undue emphasis on locally unique aspects of the system, or ways of organizing the individual local experience, may however obscure the operation of the larger universal patterns. Designing or planning for man’s maximal advantage requires that we remain comprehensively oriented towards the employment of such preferred patterns as man has been able to elicit from universal behavior, i.e., scientific laws.
1.48 Fuller often refers to the completion of the table of atomic elements as the prime ’universal’ structural discovery of our time; one which gives man a full basic inventory of energy configurations and possible combinations whose true functioning is invisibly located at the submolecular level. From this time on ’design is more clearly seen as the visible ordering of subvisible energy patterns with no value division between
1.49 natural and synthetic materials–synthesis is but a local rearrangement of the basic element inventory. Similarly, with the new alloy and chemical strengths now available, function, in the material ’form’ sense may no longer be visibly determined. There can no longer be any preconceived formal preference for particular materials and forming means. There can be no preconceived end solutions but only the continued flexible response to man’s requirements which may be viewed in themselves as dynamic energy relationships in varying degrees of transformative change.
1.50 The needs of man within such a comprehensive orientation requires also to be considered in the widest sense, as extending beyond his physically measurable well-being. Though man may, in a sense, define Universe, no adequate statement of the phenomenon Man himself has yet been made. Therefore, we have to design so as to accommodate those needs beyond the physically demonstrable which may yet be crucial to his forward evolution.
1.51 In applying such comprehensive review to man’s historical progress, Fuller points out that he has only survived by anticipatory strategy–by consciously organizing and transmitting his past experience to control and direct his future progress. His stored ’scientific’ experience evolves into technology which externalizes the principles discovered by mental processing into tools which give him material survival advantage. All man’s technological progress up to and including full industrialization forms part of his evolutionary pattern. Industrialization is the reintegration of discovered scientific principles into a common regenerative and universally applicable advantage for man. It is, in this sense, organically inherent in the evolutionary direction of the human enterprise. The enormous survival advantage and ’wealth’ generated through industrialization is potentially inexhaustible as it depends ultimately on the accumulated universal experience of all men ordered through science and manifested in the regenerative technological cycling of materials and tools. Within this regenerative process there can be no real depletion of wealth if the overall system is comprehensively maintained and allowed to develop to its full global extent. Based on the universal experience of all men it is inherently global in nature, requiring for its full operation, access to the entire world’s raw materials, and for its successful and economic operation, the global redistribution of its products for the advantage of all men.
1.52 From this time forward, with the full development of industrialization as a prime feature of his accumulated experience, man’s evolution is no longer dependent only on locally fortuitous environmental factors, natural selection or biological mutation. The capacity to consciously modify his own forward evolutionary pattern comes increasingly within his own power.
1.53 Our present world crises hinge directly upon this issue–the realization of man’s historical role and the cooperative ecological relationship and interdependence of the entire human family.
1.54 Viewed comprehensively the central problem of this present critical period in man’s affairs is how to make the total world’s resources, which now serve only 44 per cent of humanity, serve 100 per cent through competent design–despite the continuing decrease of metal resources per capita. The requisite designed application of our world industrial potential to this problem is not implicit within the present trend of our major
1.55 social and political directions. It patently requires the assumption of a new social initiative and leadership. This is the purpose of the World Design Science Decade 1965-75, through which the world students, initially in architecture and environmental planning, will forcefully demonstrate their capacity to deal comprehensively with the redesign of the world’s major tool facilities and networks.
1.56 John McHale Carbondale, Illinois May, 1965