Buckminster Fuller Institute

Buckminster Fuller Institute was founded in 1983 to inspire and support new generations of design science innovation. From 2007-17, BFI ran the globally recognized Buckminster Fuller Challenge, which awarded a prize to support the development and implementation of high potential solutions that “solve humanity’s most pressing problems in the shortest possible time while enhancing the Earth’s ecological integrity.” In honor of BFI's 40th Anniversary, we launched the BFI Design Lab in 2023 to strategically address critical challenges for planetary thriving on a 24/7 basis. The BFI Design Lab (https://lnkd.in/gmx3kEjX) website has just been updated with detailed information on our current cohort of 9 projects. ?? Design Science Advisory Services supports clients in developing investment ready, mission critical project portfolios for regeneration. https://lnkd.in/gqiEGm4D ?? The BioFi Project is a collective supporting bioregions to design, build, and implement Bioregional Financing Facilities that connect financial resources and regenerators. https://lnkd.in/g3Jn7hjG ?? Open Future Coalition builds technical, social, and financial tools that support our ability to collectively innovate on, resource, and apply solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. https://lnkd.in/gUpryZJD ?? The Indigenous Rewilding Network (IRN), under the leadership of Flower Hill Institute, catalyzes opportunities for land return and indigenous-led rewilding. https://lnkd.in/gtn8qgGj ?? Regenerosity, incubated at BFI starting in 2019, flows trust-based funds to high-potential, community-based initiatives in threatened or degraded landscapes in ways that grow their capacities, scale and impact. https://lnkd.in/gdMbQ65z ?? OMNI-Mapping is building powerful processes that make maps more useful in their local contexts and reusable globally. https://lnkd.in/g2JcwgH6 ?? The Weather Makers is an engineering company with a holistic vision. Viewing water as the engine of all life on earth, restoring water cycles is the key to achieve overall biosphere restoration in order to create a healthy planet. https://lnkd.in/gHv89eYu ?? The Collaborative for Bioregional Action, Learning, and Transformation (COBALT) is working to build a Bioregional Digital Twin and support bioregional transformation. https://lnkd.in/gjWkFmug ?? Symoto is a pioneering software platform designed to drive regenerative transformation by integrating system dynamics modeling into a user-friendly online toolkit. https://lnkd.in/gixxEcMr

We are inspired by the harmony of FUNCTION and FORM… The CODING OF FORM is our ongoing sketchbook exploring geometries and forms from around the world! This week looking at Buckminster Fuller’s classic Geodesic Domes. Check out our last post for the VISUALS - but here as promised is the PROCESS of how we broke down the design into a series of manageable steps. FULL WALKTHROUGH IS AVAILABLE ON OUR WEBSITE! (Link in bio ??) Breaking down complex forms and geometries like this goes a LONG way to help you with your Grasshopper scripting. It is about developing a computational MINDSET, and an APPROACH to designing with Grasshopper The ability to break complex ideas down is THE most important thing and exactly what we teach here at Tekne Learn. Reach out if you have any questions or are looking for some guidance. Buckminster Fuller Institute Buckminster Fuller, Sadao & Zung Architects Grasshopper by Robert McNeel and Associates (TLM, Inc) D5 Render Tekne Learn Luma AI Runway #grasshopper #rhino #d5render #architecture #AI #AIart #airendering #digitalart #generativeart #artificalintelligence #aiartists #aiartist #art #parametricdesign #geodesicdome #buckminsterfuller #codes #teknelearn #luma #lumaai #grasshopper3d #form #computationalthinking #computationalmindset

Happy Birthday to Bruce Mau! As Fuller is quoted below: "There are very few [people] today who are disciplined to comprehend the totally integrating significance of the 99 percent invisible activity which is coalescing to reshape our future." Bruce is one of those people. Thank you Bruce, Aiyemobisi "Bisi" Williams, and Massive Change Network for your commitment to the 99 percent invisible activity of supporting the journey to a thriving planet against daunting headwinds.

Each year, SOCAP Global convenes the impact community with a clear intention: to facilitate impact across silos, geographies, approaches, and philosophies and to accelerate the development of meaningful, critical relationships. This year's timely theme is Going Deeper: Catalyzing Systems Change. Join me at #SOCAP24, October 28-30, in San Francisco, to participate in this movement. I'll be presenting on "Rewilding Impact Investing" as part of a Brief & Bold session. We'll be highlighting the work of Buckminster Fuller Institute Design Lab projects: ?? Indigenous Rewilding Network (https://lnkd.in/gHMqrKEg) led by Flower Hill Institute working to rewild and restore land to tribal nations across the United States. ?? The Weather Makers Foundation connecting peacemaking and ecological restoration in the Sinai Peninsula and globally. Other BFI Design Lab projects will be presenting as part of the Deploying Climate Capital track: ?? The BioFi Project with Samantha Power ?? Open Future Coalition with Kaitlin Archambault Buckminster Fuller Institute Board Chair Tom Chi with At One Ventures will present during the opening panel of the Deploying Climate Capital track. At #SOCAP24 you'll be able to meet, network, and collaborate with investors, entrepreneurs, social impact leaders, and more. Register with s24_spk to save $250 on your ticket! https://bit.ly/471XGQd?

Big news! We’re excited to announce a transformative partnership with the Buckminster Fuller Institute and Except. This collaboration embodies the vision of Buckminster Fuller, whose pioneering work in Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science reshaped how we approach global challenges. Fuller believed in solving the world’s most pressing problems through holistic, whole-systems thinking—a philosophy that has been at the heart of Except's 25 years of systemic innovation. The partnership focuses on launching Symoto, a cutting-edge platform that empowers changemakers to model and optimize sustainable urban systems in real-time. Symoto takes this vision forward, providing the backbone for projects like Orchid City, a fully regenerative urban development. Together, BFI and Except are building a future-proof world that prioritizes circularity, resilience, and collaboration. Read more about this partnership in the full press release below. #Sustainability #BuckminsterFuller #WholeSystemsDesign #Symoto #RegenerativeCities #CircularEconomy #OrchidCity #FutureProof

Buckminster Fuller Institute Design Lab is excited to announce a new project led by Tom Bosschaert and his team at Except Integrated Sustainability. Symoto (https://symoto.org/) is a pioneering software platform designed to drive regenerative transformation by integrating system dynamics modeling into a user-friendly online toolkit. Symoto aligns closely with Buckminster Fuller’s philosophy of Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science and World Game scenario building process by offering systemic, regenerative solutions that tackle the world’s most pressing challenges, such as climate change and biodiversity loss, through innovative, whole-systems design. Symoto empowers stakeholders working on complex sustainable development projects - such as those addressing urban planning, circular economies, and resource management - by providing deep insights into energy, material flows, and environmental impacts in real time. Symoto allows users to map and model resource flows, simulate scenarios, and communicate the implications of sustainable solutions effectively. It offers robust data processing, project management, and analysis tools in a seamless interface, fostering collaboration and innovation. With its cloud-based architecture, Symoto connects stakeholders, streamlines decision-making, and significantly reduces project development time and costs. It serves as a critical hub for sustainable development by integrating key data from various fields and providing advanced simulation capabilities, enabling faster and more impactful decision-making processes. Symoto's long-term vision includes developing comprehensive digital twins of neighborhoods, cities, and regions, creating a connected ecosystem of knowledge for managing sustainable resource flows. This makes Symoto a perfect fit for the ambitious Orchid City project (https://orchidcity.eco/), where it will serve as the backbone for the digital twin of the city. Orchid City, envisioned as a fully sustainable and regenerative urban environment, will utilize Symoto as a digital model to monitor, manage, and optimize its complex systems, such as energy, waste, and material flows, ensuring maximum efficiency and minimal environmental impact.

Inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s vision of systemic design science, OMNI-Mapping (https://omnimapping.org) is a new project advancing the field of mapping by enabling organizations to build on the work of others, and create clearer, more actionable maps. OMNI-Mapping extends the powerful Catalist platform (https://lnkd.in/gvhkgHx7), a social impact network and digital library where you can discover projects, events, and opportunities to change the world. The OMNI-Mapping team is led by Vincent Arena and Wendy McLean. The OMNI-Mapping project joins several related software and on the ground initiatives in the Buckminster Fuller Institute Design Lab. Every organization engages in mapping, but most don’t create maps with the required focus to provide clarity, drive understanding, and inform action. Additionally, organizations waste significant resources creating maps from scratch that cannot be reused, preventing them from sharing data and opportunities across organizations. OMNI-Mapping solves this by building powerful processes that make maps more useful in their local contexts and reusable globally. With OMNI-Mapping, organizations can assess their current information landscape, understand how to reach their goals, and act with confidence. A better approach to mapping creates a better approach to everything. OMNI-Mapping will offer a robust infrastructure designed to elevate mapping capabilities for any organization through: ?? Interoperable global datasets that serve as key connection points, enabling seamless integration across maps. ?? A mapping framework and toolkit that guides organizations through effective, structured map-making processes. ?? Local mapping templates for quick, interoperable map creation across popular tools like Airtable, Kumu, and Catalist. By adopting OMNI-Mapping, you’re not just creating better maps - you’re building an interconnected network of maps that empower us to coordinate in solving challenges across organizations, bioregions, and scales. If you’re actively mapping your ecosystem and interested in benefiting from or helping advance the OMNI-Mapping framework, visit https://omnimapping.org or reach out to Vincent Arena or Wendy McLean.?

COBALT: Collaborative for Bioregional Action Learning and Transformation (https://lnkd.in/gUJNkYJh) The Buckminster Fuller Institute Design Lab is delighted to announce its latest global cohort member! This remarkable team is based in the Gulf of Maine Bioregion, headquartered in Portland, Maine, unceded Wabanaki homeland, and blend western and indigenous ways of knowing to co-create activation energy for bioregional regeneration. The team is led by Executive Director Glenn Page and supported by a world-class board of directors developing novel ways to see and amplify transformative change. ? One area of focus is seagrass conservation and restoration in Casco Bay (land of the great blue heron) that integrates arts, ecological restoration, and traditional ecological wisdom with high quality collaboration and seemingly endless field-building efforts. COBALT applies the direct on-the ground field work to shape a myriad of bioregional systems interconnections. Nowhere else have we seen the ability to connect biosphere and carbon sequestration to grain production, craft beer distilling, wastewater treatment infrastructure and seagrass meadow health! ? COBALT is a virtuoso of nested systems, multiple perspectives, and dynamic boundaries that are full of “acupuncture points” for direct action that leads to transformative change. ? COBALT is also developing what could be the world’s first bioregional digital twin, marking phases of transformation for navigation of the polycrisis that weaves highly contextual strategic insight with decision-making frameworks and knowledge management systems. Their work is inspiring, rewarding, and visionary as they build agency and capacity for leadership.? ? COBALT staff member Haley Fitzpatrick recently co-led a bioregional learning journey in Casco Bay applying principles she has recently published using embodied learning to better navigate the polycrisis at bioregional and global scales. COBALT is developing its own bioregional pluriverse ?(multiple perspectives and methodologies) and the BFI Design Lab is thrilled to be working alongside and actively supporting them in their remarkable comprehensive anticipatory design thinking! The remarkable framework below is co-authored by Haley Fitzpatrick, Tobias Luthe, Daniel Christian Wahl et al, published by ETH Zürich.

Dr. Stuart Cowan, Executive Director of the Buckminster Fuller Institute, spoke to host Ma Earth's Matthew Monahan about his personal journey to BFI and carrying Bucky’s torch forward. Humanity has been operating on a scarcity mindset for centuries, and it's brought us to the brink of ecological collapse. But what if we flipped the script?? https://lnkd.in/gG-Xu2An #regeneration #sustainability #futurism #innovation

Recently our Executive Director Dr. Stuart Cowan sat down with Matthew Monahan from Ma Earth to discuss some of the design approaches that may assist in planetary regeneration. Matthew is curating an extraordinary group of conversations in his series The Regeneration Will be Funded (https://lnkd.in/gcCJpmD2), connecting ReFi, Web3, regenerative economics, and cultural transformation. Buckminster Fuller worked in a transdisciplinary way starting in the 1920s to develop an extraordinary body of work including: ?? Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science: integrating multiple disciplines and approaches to support whole systems, long-term design grounded in rigorous science ?? Ephemeralization: meeting more needs with radically less energy and materials. ?? Abundance: designing for flows of abundance rather than being trapped in scarcity. ?? Commons: working with shared pools of knowledge and resources that can "make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone." This included a proposal for a near-free renewable energy grid. ?? Synergy: working to create cascading benefits in a system by supporting mutually beneficial interactions. ?? World Game: building better models and positive scenarios for shared thriving. At Buckminster Fuller Institute, we are bringing Fuller's edgewalking, boundary crossing legacy into dialogue with visionary 2020s design approaches. The conversation explores indigenous knowledge systems, bioregional scenario building, planetary civics, linking governance to biophysical processes and tipping points, regenerative finance, systems attractors, the pluriverse, multi-species democracy and much more.