House of the Future: Dymaxion Dwelling Machine

Architect, theoretician, and super-genius R. Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller is mostly known for inventing the Geodesic Dome as a low-cost, durable, manufactured, and easy-to-assemble housing alternative that wound up being popularized in the early seventies.

Years before the Dome, Fuller designed a lesser known low-cost manufactured housing alternative dubbed "The Dymaxion Dwelling Machine."

In 1991, Michigan's Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village acquired the sole surviving working prototype of Fuller's Dymaxion Dwelling Machine and reassembled it inside the Museum.

By 2001, the restoration was completed and the house was opened for public viewing.

The Dymaxion Dwelling Machine

Although Buckminster Fuller originally designed The Dymaxion Dwelling Machine in 1927, the first working prototype wasn't built until 1945. This was only made possible because the return of American soldiers after World War II had created a housing shortage crisis.

Fuller's pitch for funding: the Dymaxion house could be had by the average American for the cost of a new Cadillac.

Besides the promise of affordability, the Dymaxion Dwelling Machine's design itself was revolutionary. The entire disassembled house could be shipped inside a metal tube, and the weight of the house was three tons as opposed to the 150 tons of an average American house. The house's structure was one of a kind, tension-suspended from a central pole that also served as the house's electric and plumbing core. Fuller had also designed the house to be earthquake and storm proof. And its exterior skin was made of aluminum materials that required no painting or maintenance. As for the interior, movable walls provided the ultimate in floor-plan modularity and flexibility. Added features included rotating closets that brought your clothes right to you, and a downdraft ventilation system that sucked dust out of rooms and through filters like a multiple-head vacuum cleaner.

R. Buckminster Fuller

"Bucky" Fuller approached Beech Aircraft of Wichita, Kansas with his design. They were only one of many former military-centered manufacturing companies that were wondering how they'd be able to survive after the war. Since Fuller's Dymaxion Dwelling Machine's design was similar to aircraft design, Beech Aircraft agreed to partner with him. But, as the manufacturing process progressed, Beech Aircraft executives became nervous and started pushing Fuller to make what they had deemed to be practical design compromises. Being the engineering and mathematical purist, Bucky strongly disagreed with Beech's design mandates. Unfortunately, this only led to the project's collapse.

Fortunately, two working aluminum prototypes of the Dymaxion Dwelling Machine adhering to Fuller's specifications were produced.

William Graham

Before Beech Aircraft could destroy the two prototypes, a Wichita millionaire named William Graham came to the rescue, purchasing both for his family home. The bad news, however, was that Graham had the parts of the Dymaxion house integrated into a more traditional suburban home structure.

William Graham's family members eventually donated the surviving Dymaxion house's components to the Henry Ford Museum in 1991. It took the Museum 17 months to restore and reassemble the Dymaxion Dwelling Machine according to R. Buckminster Fuller's specifications.

SOURCES:

"Dymaxion House", J. Baldwin, PBS

"Dymaxion House", Bevin Cline and Tina di Carlo, Museum of Modern Art