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Tensegrity describes a structural-relationship principle in which structural shape is guaranteed by the finitely closed, comprehensively continuous, tensional behaviors of the system and not by the discontinuous and exclusively local compressional member behaviors.
- Note from RWG
- By R. Buckminster Fuller
- Patents and Natural Principles
- Genesis of Synergetic Geometry
- The Wire Wheel
- Tension vs. Compression
- The Law of Systems
- Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Dimensions
- Geodesic Tensegrities as Earth Satellites
- Tensegrity in Atomic Structure
This paper appeared in Portfolio and Art News Annual, No.4,1961. In addition to this article there is an accompanyingIntroduction by John McHale. Only the Tensegrity articleis reproduced here by permission of the Estate of R. BuckminsterFuller. An attempt has been made to re-produce the illustrationscontained in the article. It is clear that I have...
Copyright 1961 R. Buckminster Fuller
It is commonly overlooked that the patrons of architects,engineers and professional craftsmen are inherently theprime designers of their projects. Theirs is the conceptioning,the will to do, the initiative and the statement of limits.Conceivers of great industries and their trans-national patterninghave been the large pattern-designers of the last world century.Those who have been successful world-industry designers have alsobeen powerful anarchistic authorities. In this last centurymany conc...
Onecannot patent geometry per se nor any separatedifferentiated-out, pure principle of nature'soperative processes. One canpatent, however, the surprise complex behaviors of associatedprinciples, where the behavior of the whole is unpredicted bythe behavior of the parts, i.e. synergetic phenomena. The latteris whatis known as an invention, a comple...
What interested me back in 1927,regarding the limitless ratios of tensionalslenderness,was whether we were trending toward bridgeswhich had infinite length and no section dimension at all,or whether this was a nonsensical question. As a sailor Ilooked spontaneously into the sky for indicated clues. Ifound myself saying, "Itis very interesting to ob...
As I wondered whether it was nowpossible for man to inaugurate an era of thinking and consciousdesigning in the terms of comprehensive tensions anddiscontinuous compressions, I saw that his structuralconceptioning of the wire wheel documented hisintellectual-designing break-through into such thinking andstructuring That is, the compressionalhub of ...
As I considered the 12 unique vectors of freedom constantlyand non-redundantly operative between the two poles of thewire wheel, its islanded hub and its also islanded equatorialrim-atoll--in effect a milky-way-like ring of a myriadof star islands encircling the hub in a plane perpendicularto the hub axis--I discerned that this most economic arrang...
Absolutely straight lines oran absolutely flat plane would, theoretically, continueoutwardly to infinity. Intellectual comprehension occurswhen patterns of experience return upon themselves inall directions. The difference between infinity andfinity is governed by the taking of angular sinuses,like pieces of pie, out of surface areas around a point...
For twenty-one years, beforemeeting Kenneth Snelson, I had been ransacking theTensegrity concepts. I had used the multiple rimmed,parallel or concentric wire wheel phases of Tensegrity,since 1927, in the multi-decked 4D mast structures andthe Dymaxion House. In 1917, ten yearsearlier than my first Tensegrity, I had inaugurated anddiscovered the vec...
If we make microscopic inspection of a pneumatic balloon,we will find that the balloon skin is full of holesbetween its molecular chains, with a secondary andfar smaller space continuity of "all holes" or "continuous space"between the remotely-islanded energetic components of eachmolecule's respective atomic nuclear constellations. Allthese humanly...
If the frequencyis high enough, the size of the interstices of theTensegrity net may become so relatively small as toarrest the passage of any phenomenalarger than the holes. If frequency is high enough,neither water nor air molecules can pass through.They may be made to keep out the weather-complexwhile admitting radar's microwaves and light, etc....
Some years later, the term "tensegrity" was coined by Fuller, who is best known for his geodesic domes. Throughout his career, Fuller had experimented with incorporating tensile components in his work, such as in the framing of his dymaxion houses.
Jun 3, 2018 · Through his extensive research, inventions and structural experiments, Buckminster Fuller created the term tensegrity to describe "self-tensioning structures composed of rigid structures and...
Jan 1, 1978 · Some of Buckminster Fuller's “Tensegrity” structures have fewer bars than are necessary to satisfy Maxwell's rule, and yet are not “mechanisms” as one might expect, but are actually stiff structures.
- C.R. Calladine
- 1978
Tensegrity. R. Buckminster Fuller used the word "tensegrity" to describe a structure whose form relies both on compression and tension. A good example of a tensegrity structure might be a balloon.
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Aug 31, 2012 · Tensegrity is a term with a rich and sprawling history. It was coined by Buckminster Fuller, the iconoclastic architect, engineer, and poet, to describe his vision of a new kind of architecture, one that looked like it was built by nature instead of by humans.
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