Die Raumfahrt der Gesellschaft

Alle Menschen sind Astronaut*innen - nachzulesen nicht nur bei Buckminster Fuller, sondern auch bei Michel Serres. Aber was bedeutet es, die Raumfahrt als gesellschaftliches Projekt zu reflektieren? Dieser Frage gehen die Beiträger*innen des Bandes im Hinblick auf die zwei wichtigen Dimensionen Wirtschaft und Kultur nach, die in Verbindung miteinander betrachtet werden. Die Analysen verdeutlichen, wie sich das technische Großprojekt der Raumfahrt in die Gesellschaft eingeschrieben hat, und lassen schlussfolgern, dass die Raumfahrt kein reines Elitenprojekt bleiben kann.

The post-Olympic dilemma: a systems approach to architecture

The practice of Architecture is in need of a new methodology towards Olympic sport infrastructure. The Olympic Games have shown that constructing Olympic buildings with traditional methods is unsustainable. Post-Olympic use is generally unplanned causing financial burdens for those cities maintaining the large buildings. This thesis/project makes reference to work of R. Buckminster Fuller, Cedric Price, and Archigram in developing a systematic approach to Olympic Architecture. The core concepts of systems theory and cybernetics are investigated and a relationship is made with architecture. This culminates in the design of a process that looks to successfully locate an Olympic gymnasium in a Toronto community. It tackles the question of how to build Olympic stadia with lower embodied energy and qualities of stewardship, adaptability, flexibility and modality while maintaining multi-functionality.

The post-Olympic dilemma: a systems approach to architecture

The practice of Architecture is in need of a new methodology towards Olympic sport infrastructure. The Olympic Games have shown that constructing Olympic buildings with traditional methods is unsustainable. Post-Olympic use is generally unplanned causing financial burdens for those cities maintaining the large buildings. This thesis/project makes reference to work of R. Buckminster Fuller, Cedric Price, and Archigram in developing a systematic approach to Olympic Architecture. The core concepts of systems theory and cybernetics are investigated and a relationship is made with architecture. This culminates in the design of a process that looks to successfully locate an Olympic gymnasium in a Toronto community. It tackles the question of how to build Olympic stadia with lower embodied energy and qualities of stewardship, adaptability, flexibility and modality while maintaining multi-functionality.

Continuous flattening of the 2-dimensional skeleton of a regular 24-cell

Bellow theorem says that any polyhedron with rigid faces cannot change its volume even if it is flexible. The problem on continuous flattenig of polyhedra with non-rigid faces proposed by Demaine et al. was solved for all convex polyhedra by using the notion of moving creases to change some of the faces. This problem was extended to a problem on continuous flattening of the 2-dimensional skeleton of higher dimensional polytopes. This problem was solved for all regular polytopes except three types, the 24-cell, the 120-cell, and the 600-cell. This article addresses the 24-cell and gives a continuous flattening motion for its 2-skeleton, which is related to the Jitterbug by Buckminster Fuller.

Zur lyrischen Inszenierung ‚natürlicher Heimat‘ — Der Blick auf den ‚Heimatplaneten‘ in Durs

Das kurze Gedicht „Tacchini“ des deutschen Lyrikers Durs Grünbein, 1962 in Dresden geboren, aus dem Zyklus Cyrano, oder: Die Rückkehr vom Mond (2014), nimmt sich einem fast schon vergessenen lyrischen Topos an: Denn noch ein klassisches (Sehnsuchts-)Symbol in Gedichten des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, scheint die Lyrik der Gegenwart deutlich das Interesse am Mond verloren zu haben. Diese regelrechte ‚Entmystifizierung‘ mag an der ersten Mondlandung liegen, seit aus dem Erdtrabanten im Sommer 1969 ein nun konkret ‚erreichbarer‘ Ort geworden ist. Doch die ‚Eroberung‘ des Weltalls hatte auch einen überraschenden Nebeneffekt, nämlich die ‚Wiederentdeckung‘ der Erde, führte doch der Blick auf den ‚Heimatplaneten‘ erstmals zu einer bewussten Reflektion des Umgangs mit der Natur.Grünbein greift diese Bedeutungsverschiebung auf, wenn sein Zyklus nun den Topos lyrischer Mondgedichte regelrecht zu dekonstruieren scheint oder die Perspektive dezidiert vom Mond auf die Erde gerichtet wird. So inszeniert das Gedicht „Tacchini“ einen ‚Blick von oben‘ auf die Erde und dreht damit die klassische Betrachterposition um; vielmehr beschreibt das lyrische Ich die vom Weltraum aus sichtbare menschliche Zivilisationstätigkeit und die Eingriffe in die Umwelt.In Dialog mit philosophischen Ansätzen von Richard Buckminster-Fuller und Günther Anders sowie der Theorie des Anthropozän gesetzt, soll Grünbeins Gedicht der Ausgangspunkt für eine Diskussion des Konzepts vom ‚Heimatplaneten‘ darstellen und die Grenzen ‚natürlicher Heimat‘ hinterfragen.

AIDS infrastructures, queer networks: Architecting the critical path

This essay pursues how HIV/AIDS and digital media transform one another’s historiographies. Working with the archive of activist Kiyoshi Kuromiya (1943–2000), the essay considers the role of AIDS organizing in the history of the Internet, and in establishing recursive relations between media formats. Kuromiya’s early adoption of Internet technology centered the needs of people living with HIV/AIDS, incarcerated people, and people of color to access vital information for community formation and survival. Tracing the unlikely collaboration between Kuromiya and techno-futurist architect R. Buckminster Fuller (1885–1983), which culminated in Kuromiya’s founding of the Critical Path AIDS Project, this essay interrogates the term “adjuvant,” which Fuller borrowed from immunological discourse to describe their co-authorship. Anchored in a critical engagement with the metaphor of the adjuvant — an agent aiding immunological response — this essay elaborates the digital infrastructures underwriting a blueprint for community building, offering a prehistory of digital queer care networks. In conclusion, the essay meditates on the role of curation in theorizing the temporality of AIDS and its ongoing histories.

Mapping the Cosmos

There is no way to transcribe the features of the Earth’s spherical surface onto a flat map without some distortion. All maps distort the geography of the sphere. The familiar Mercator maps inflate regions close to the poles compared to regions in the tropics. In 1973, Arno Peters promoted the Gall–Peters projection that compensates for the expansion of polar regions compared to the tropics. Buckminster Fuller invented a map called the Dymaxion in which the globe is projected onto an icosahedron, which is then unfolded into an icosahedral net. Another interesting projection is the Pierce Quincuncial projection invented by Charles Sanders Pierce. The Milky Way galaxy was recently mapped using data from NASA’s Wide-field Infra-red Survey Explorer (WISE) and shown to be a barred spiral galaxy. Pablo Carlos Budassi has created a map of the entire visible universe using NASA images by representing radial distances on a logarithmic scale.

Escultura de Morar

Memórias e anotações sobre a experiência do autor como professor da cadeira de Projeto 1, para estudantes de primeiro período do curso de arquitetura do Centro de Arquitetura e Artes da Universidade Santa Úrsula, Rio de Janeiro. Atuando como professor das cadeiras de Plástica 1, 2 e 3 (Departamento de Análise e Representação da Forma) de 1979 a 1994, em 1993 o autor aceitou o convite – e o desafio – de elaborar um novo programa para a disciplina de Projeto 1, com resultados inesperados, surpreendentes, de altíssima qualidade, em se tratando de trabalhos de futuros arquitetos iniciantes. Referências a pesquisas de artistas e arquitetos precursores, tais como Kazimir Malevich e Buckminster Fuller.

Geodesic Domes as Business Model in Hotel Management for Local Economies Development

This research aims to present the Buckminster Fuller geodesics in a contemporary context through a new hotel model, detailed by the case of the Ecocamp Hotel (CHILE), a pioneer in the construction of hotel rooms with geodetic domes incorporating aspects of local culture, sustainable development of the environment, and also, linking concepts of environmental awareness. This project was chosen for analysis because it was a great success, becoming a model for other ventures of the same segment, in other regions of the country, as well as abroad. It is important to show this case study because its model proves very promising also to be replicated in the context of the development of local economies in Brazil or in underdeveloped countries.