born July 12, 1895, Milton, Mass., U.S.
died July 1, 1983, Los Angeles, Calif.
U.S. inventor, futurist, architect, and author.
The grandnephew of Melville Fuller , he was expelled twice from Harvard University and never completed his college education. Failure in a prefab construction business led him to search for design patterns that would most efficiently use Earth's resources for humanity's greatest good. His innovations included the inexpensive, lightweight, factory-assembled Dymaxion House and the energy-efficient, omnidirectional Dymaxion Car. He developed a vectorial system of geometry that he called "Energetic-Synergetic geometry"; its basic unit is the tetrahedron, which, when combined with octahedrons, forms the most economic space-filling structures. This led Fuller to design the geodesic dome, the only large dome that can be set directly on the ground as a complete structure, and the only practical kind of building that has no limiting dimensions (i.e., beyond which the structural strength must be insufficient).