ABSTRACT
R. Buckminster Fuller was a design philosopher who viewed the primary purpose of the design professions as a means of improving the human condition through a process of anticipating future needs. His writings tend to be speculative in nature; his discussions of architecture are secondary to his concerns with the design process and the social outcomes of built forms. In this article he reviews the proceedings of the 1976 United Nations Habitat Conference and places it in the context of his own 50-year career as an environmental designer. He argues for design responses that address the problems of housing the vast majority of humankind who must exist in unhealthy and inhuman conditions. Fuller was one of the most forceful and innovative advocates of the modern design principle of improving the environment by doing “more with less,” and of the challenge of placing technology at the service of humanity.
