Here’s a prototype of Blue Bottle Coffee Co.’s hexagonal s’more, which will be for sale (along with iced coffee) at tomorrow’s Buckminster Fuller-inspired Utopian Cookout, 11:30-1:30pm. Dymaxion chili is also on the menu… mmmMmmmm!

We’ve been receiving a lot of Buckminster Fuller-inspired visitor postcards lately. This one makes note of the fact that although Fuller’s geodesic domes were sustainable and fulfilled many utopian ideals, living inside of them was incredibly awkward.

We are not going to be able to operate our spaceship Earth much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody. – Buckminster Fuller

Buckminster Fuller thought of the world as a contained spaceship, where all of us are on board together, flying through space with a finite amount of resources. How do you think this metaphor can/cannot be helpful in working to solve problems today?

For our Free Tuesday program today at noon, come learn about Bucky Fuller! (Um, yes, that’s in 10 minutes)

Pictured: Dymaxion House, project, Plan. R. Buckminster Fuller. via MoMA

Buckminster Fuller imagined this tetrahedron city project for Tokyo’s bay. He also imagined a similar floating tetrahedral city for San Francisco’s Bay.

 From MoMA’s website:

The buoyant metropolis was designed to accommodate one million citizens in 300,000 apartment units, and it even includes a huge interior harbor. Fuller, who spent his career searching for “ever higher performance with ever less investment of material resources,” envisioned Tetrahedron City as an efficient response to two major problems of architecture and urban planning: construction costs and land acquisition.

What do you think: would you consider living in one of these floating cities, had Buckminster Fuller’s utopian vision come to fruition?

Stewart Brand, publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog, October 1966. He’s wearing a button that reads, “Why haven’t we seen a photograph of the whole earth yet?”

Come learn about Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog tonight in our Bucky Fuller exhibition at 6:30pm!

Photograph by Gene Anthony, © wolfgangsvault.com

Nancy Newhall, Buckminster Fuller, 1948/1990; gelatin silver print; Collection SFMOMA. Source.

Ever since R. Buckminster Fuller popularized the design in the mid-20th century, there’s been something captivating about the geodesic dome. While the structure typically makes architecture lovers salivate, now it’s conquering the heart of another type of urbanist: the city farmer. A new dome-based prototype promises an affordable method of rooftop aquaculture for apartment and commercial buildings—as the website calls it, getting “fish from the sky.”

(via A Geodesic Dome Promises Fish from the Sky - GOOD)

…A “live documentary” is like a film, but it all happens in person. I project images up on the screen and stand on stage narrating. And a band (Yo La Tengo) performs a live soundtrack. It’s a form that I like very much. As part of SFMOMA’s exhibit on Buckminster Fuller, I also made a multi-channel video installation that’s up now at the museum and will be there through August, I believe.

Read more: Sam Green’s Profile - The Bold Italic