- Theme:
- Nature, Geometry, and the Symmetry of Space: Tetrahedron Discovers Itself and Universe
- When:
- Friday 11 November 2011, 8AM - 7PM
Saturday 12 November 2011, 8AM - 7PM
Sunday 13 November 2011, 8AM - 3PM
- Where:
- Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)
Metcalf Auditorium, Chace Center
20 N. Main St
Providence, RI 02906
- Short Description:
- The 2011 Biennial Design Science
Symposium will explore Nature, Geometry, and the Symmetry of
Space.
- Description:
- The Synergetics Collaborative and The Edna Lawrence Nature Lab at
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) will present the Third
Biennial Design Science Symposium at RISD on 11-13 November 2011.
This event will be a meeting of educators, makers and thinkers to
address the theme of "Nature, Geometry, and the Symmetry of Space:
Tetrahedron Discovers Itself and Universe". In addition, there
will be a Design Science Exhibit & art show with participants'
work opening on Nov 6 in the Waterman Gallery and a reception
on Nov 11.
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In one of Buckminster Fuller's most audacious claims he
proposed that "Nature's Coordinate System" could be understood
by investigating the closest packing of spheres and a complex of
related geometrical structures. The theme of this year's Design
Science Symposium at RISD will be to investigate that claim
and the many variations of it that have developed over the 35 years
since the publication of Fuller's ideas in his magnum opus, Synergetics.
Please join the Synergetics Collaborative, RISD/Brown faculty,
students and others as we explore design, Nature, problem-solving,
and understanding how our world can be made to work for 100%
of humanity at this symposium in November 2011.
About 1917, I decided that nature did not have separate,
independently operating departments of physics, chemistry, biology,
mathematics, ethics, etc. Nature did not call a department heads' meeting when
I threw a green apple into the pond, with the department heads having to make
a decision about how to handle this biological encounter with chemistry's
water and the unauthorized use of the physics department's waves. I decided
that it didn't require a Ph.D. to discern that nature probably had only one
department and only one coordinate, omnirational, mensuration
system.
I determined then and there to seek out the comprehensive
coordinate system employed by nature. The omnirational associating
and disassociating of chemistry—always joining in whole
low-order numbers, as for instance H2O and never
HpiO—persuaded me that if I could discover
nature's comprehensive coordination, it would prove to be
omnirational despite academic geometry's fortuitous development
and employment of transcendental irrational numbers and other
"pure," nonexperimentally demonstrable, incommensurable integer
relationships.
--- R. Buckminster Fuller, 410.01-411.23
Nature's Coordination
The initial self-and-other spherical associability produced
first, associability; next, triangulation as structure; and then,
tetrahedron as system.
--- R. Buckminster Fuller, 480.00-488.00
Tetrahedron Discovers Itself and Universe
- Representative Symposium Topics:
Closest Packing of
Spheres, Isotropic Vector Matrix (IVM), Vector Equilibrium
(VE), Quanta Modules, Cosmic Hierarchy, Great Circles; Other
models of "Nature's coordinate system"; Industrial design;
ecological materials and solutions; design principles; biomimicry;
cross-disciplinary innovation; geometry and its relationship to
design principles and the natural world; work relating to the
Design Science Approach of Buckminster Fuller and Arthur Loeb.
- Registration
The registration fee is $250 (please pay with a check or cash at the door),
$30 for students (RISD students & faculty enter at no charge but registration
is required). Please fill out the on-line registration
form. Please mail checks to Synergetics Collaborative; 240 Copley
Road; Upper Darby, PA 19082-4016.
- Schedule
The tentative schedule for the 2011 Design Science Symposium
is now available at
http://SynergeticsCollaborative.org/schedule.nov.2011.pdf.
- Art
Show: 2011 Design Science Symposium Exhibit
The 2011 Design Science Symposium Exhibit will run from 6-13
November 2011 at the Waterman Gallery, Rhode Island
School of Design (RISD), Providence, RI, 02903 USA.
To submit art work, please follow the instructions in the 2011
Design Science Symposium Exhibit: Call for Artists.
The Calendar for the Exhibit Follows:
Bio and Description Material Due | 24 October 2011 |
Work Received | 24–28 October 2011 |
Exhibit Dates | 6–13 November 2011 |
Opening Reception | 11 November 2011 |
Removal of Work | 13 November 2011 |
- Announcements of event highlights
- International Participants
- Information for international participants
- The Biennial Design Science Symposia at RISD
- The Synergetics Collaborative and The Edna Lawrence Nature
Lab at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) have organized
Biennial Design Science Symposia at RISD
since 2007. These symposia explore the field of Design
Science and provide an interactive meeting of makers, thinkers,
practitioners and educators. We strive to keep the work of
R. Buckminster Fuller current, relevant, and applied. Fuller's
design approach as "comprehensive anticipatory design
science" combines an emphasis on individual initiative and
integrity with whole systems thinking, scientific rigor
and faithful reliance on nature's underlying principles.
The first event 2007 was on the theme of "Synergetics and
Morphology: Explorations into the Shapes of Nature" (click to see a
video from that event). Two years ago the theme was "Design
Science: Nature's Problem Solving Method". This year the tradition
continues with an event focusing on the theme of "Nature, Geometry,
and the Symmetry of Space".
- About The Organizers
- Synergetics Collaborative (SNEC) was founded in 2002
to bring together a diverse group of people with an interest in
Buckminster Fuller's Synergetics in face-to-face workshops, symposia,
seminars, and other meetings to educate and support research and
understanding of the many facets of Synergetics, its methods and principles.
Visit the Synergetics Collaborative
on-line.
The Edna Lawrence Nature Lab at Rhode Island School of
Design uniquely integrates a natural history collection,
a lending library of natural specimens and a studio environment.
With its growing collection of more than 80,000 natural history
objects, books, visual resources, microscopes and a digital work
station, the Nature Lab serves as an invaluable research facility for
the RISD community. In 2003, The Nature Lab accepted the Arthur Loeb
Design Teaching Collection. This hands-on collection of hundreds of
three-dimensional polyhedra and two-dimensional patterns inspires
students and faculty to examine nature's fundamental responses to
design problems.
Visit
the Nature Lab online.