“Urban glue and trim tabs” by Norman Foster

In the freshly unveiled thematic supplement to the 2015 Annual Statistical Report on United Nations Procurement, Norman Foster ( Founder and Chairman of Foster + Partners and Pritzker Prize winner) has written an essay which builds upon the idea of Buckminster Fuller’s “trim tab” to help foster enormous change in Africa and other countries with relatively small, if holistically conceived, gestures. The essay is titled “Urban glue and trim tabs”.

“ Bucky saw himself as an independent agent of change in the vast sea of humanity. He believed in the ability of an idea, however small, to take root and exert a force, like the trim tab, and so bring about meaningful change in the world. He also placed confidence in the ability of technology to serve humanity by doing “more with less.” Nowhere is this truer than in Africa…“. – Norman Foster

Coverage of the new essay can be found on Archinect. Read the rest of the essay in this online pdf.