The design science methodology distinguishes itself from other strategic planning approaches in three important ways:

1. it invites participants to draw upon their aspirations for the future to define what Fuller referred to as a 'preferred state'. Charting the critical path to achieve this 'preferred state' comprises the bulk of the planning work;
2. design science maintains a focus on the global context in which a local or regional issue is embedded;

BFI is committed to engaging our community in deep discussion about some of the fundamental principles informing the comprehensive and anticipatory design strategies needed to solve our world’s most complex problems.

To this end, we conduct facilitated on—line dialogues. This programs distinguishes itself from our discussion forums and the comment feature on the site in a couple of important ways:

• our on-line dialogues have a specific begin and end date (usually 2-4 weeks).
• They are 'hosted' by a real person
• The goal is to engage participants in a deeper level of discussion than is normally possible in our forums
• So far, they have been convened in response to a specific text
• We plan (subject to funding!) to publish on paper an edited version of these dialogues.

To follow is the on-line dialogue we recently conducted with Dr, Michael Ben-Eli exploring a new set of Sustainability Principles.

To be notified to participate in our next on-line dialogue please join our mailing list.

This program invites you to interact with some of the leader design science visionaries in BFI's network. Jay Baldwin was out 'expert' in residence from November 2005 thru October 2006.

The responses to the may questions he fielded from people are truly amazing. We highly recommend you peruse these jewels of wisdom!

Please join our mailing list to be notified when another 'expert' is in residence. And if you have a suggestion for a better term than 'expert' — please send it our way!!

As you may have noticed we have been in the process of updating our website and have 'soft' launched version 2 of bfi.org as of today. There are still a few kinks to be ironed in the next few weeks. Your user feedback will be invaluable to this process. Please LOG IN to the site and add your comments to this posting.

This website is a unique experiment: we have made it possible for our users to post content directly to this site. All of the content in our COMMUNITY CONTENT section has been posted by our users! We invite you to participate and make BFI.org your own — as a repository of your educational resources, projects and articles.

Please be aware also that some content that has been posted to v1 of our site is still missing from this site. I am looking to re-sync our databases shortly.

Best,
— Jochen

• Applying modern technological know-how to shelter construction.
• Making shelter more comfortable and efficient.
• Making shelter more economically available to a greater number of people.

Actual satelite photo of earth at night, image courtesy of NASA, click here to see more images

Our Spaceship Earth: The purpose of this section of the site is to provide access to resources and tools that will assist visitors in acquiring a comprehensive understanding and visual grasp of the status of our planet's life support systems. The Dymaxion Map, World Game, and the Design Science Decade represent Fuller's pioneering work in this field and serve as important historical and inspirational reference points.

Spaceship Earth is a world view term usually expressing concern over the use of limited resources available on Earth.

It may have been derived from a passage in Henry George's best known work, Progress and Poverty¹ (1879). From book IV, chapter 2: "It is a well-provisioned ship, this on which we sail through space. If the bread and beef above decks seem to grow scarce, we but open a hatch and there is a new supply, of which before we never dreamed. And very great command over the services of others comes to those who as the hatches are opened are permitted to say, 'This is mine!'"

Fuller Projection

A New View for the New Millennium...A powerful tool for advancing humanity's option for success...

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