If you are reading this message, the likelihood is very high that you understand the critical importance of comprehensive, visionary approaches to solving our increasingly complex problems.

This is what BFI is all about. Now as never before, people are re-examining Buckminster Fuller’s profound legacy and looking for contemporary examples of what Fuller called comprehensive anticipatory design science to help navigate the unprecedented challenges we face today. From a clearinghouse of information on Fuller’s ideas to a high profile international design Challenge, from exhibitions and publications to symposia and hands-on workshops, BFI’s programs offer the leading edge of visionary design science thinking and application. Our programs are absolutely unique and make a tangible difference in the lives of those who participate.

The financial support of our network makes our work possible and we vitally need your continued support. We ask you to please join our network as a contributing member of The Buckminster Fuller Institute. Your contribution - especially in these tough times - makes a huge difference, no matter the size.

Your contribution enables you to receive all kinds of great things - most importantly the knowledge that your support ensures the continued success of BFI as we move into the new year.

Please give what you can, today. Many, many thanks and best wishes for a peaceful and inspired holiday season.

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In partnership,

Elizabeth Thompson
Executive Director

The Buckminster Fuller Institute is delighted to invite you to respond to a new publication on the subject of design science written by Fuller’s former student and colleague Dr. Michael Ben-Eli. BFI is committed to continued research into the practice and fundamental principles of comprehensive anticipatory design science and its relevance to contemporary global issues and design practice.

Design Science: A Framework for Change is the result of a year of intensive research into Fuller’s conceptions and practice of design science as well as wide-ranging interviews with some of its key practitioners.

We want to know what you think. To get the conversation started:

• Read Design Science: A Framework for Change onscreen above or download it as a pdf.
• Create a free user account on this website (or log in using your existing account)
• Post a comment or question by clicking Add new comment here or at the bottom of this posting
• Reply to an existing comment or question by clicking "reply"

You can post a question or comment about the document to Michael Ben-Eli and the BFI community.

Michael will answer questions, expound upon his research findings, and share his insights through Friday, December 19th.

We look forward to hearing from you!

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.

To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

- R. Buckminster Fuller

From ARTFORUM.com...

A Global Outlook
A self-proclaimed “comprehensive anticipatory design scientist,” R. Buckminster Fuller always had his sights fixed firmly on the future—and a quarter century after his death, it is his future we now inhabit. Our present, as architectural historian Sean Keller notes in his overview of Fuller’s career, is not exactly the one that Fuller imagined, but at a time of skyrocketing oil prices, global warming, and tense geopolitics, his prognostications—if not all his design solutions—seem cannier than ever before.

Part inventor, part architect, part engineer, and part ecologist, Fuller left us a sprawling inheritance that Artforum assesses here, on the occasion of his current traveling retrospective. In addition to Keller’s survey, architect Thom Mayne, artist Fritz Haeg, and architectural critics Michael Wang, Kevin Pratt, and Helene Furján offer distinctive takes on Fuller’s impact on realms ranging from buildings to biology and beyond. Keller, Mayne, and Wang’s evaluations are available online. For the rest, check out the November issue of Artforum.

Portland Center Stage presents the award-winning play R. Buckminster Fuller, The History (and Mystery) of the Universe on stage at Gerding Theater at the Armory in Portland, Oregon.

Click here for more information and to buy tickets.