A Minimum Dymaxion Home, Elevation

Perhaps the most famous design for a prefabricated house, Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion House design consumed him for over 30 years. Unlike other period references to the minimal home, Fuller’s idea was less related to space than to efficiency. In the hopes of obtaining “the maximum gain” from the minimum use of material and energy, the Dymaxion was modeled on the streamlined factory production of the automobile. This simplification extended to a centralized core housing that held all mechanical equipment while providing structural support for the mast-hung, lightweight hexagonal building. Although this design was never realized, Fuller included many of the innovative aspects of his Dymaxion House into his aluminum-clad Wichita house or Dymaxion Dwelling Machine, which was produced as a prototype in 1948.