Text alternative for “Dare to Be Different” presentation

Picture a house in your mind. It can be any house that you’re familiar with.

Then think about the following:

• What is the purpose of the house?
• What are the different parts of the house?
• What is the shape of the house? What is the shape of the roof, the windows, the doors, and other parts of the house that you can think of?
• What do you need to build the house?

Houses look different across the world, but they generally serve a common purpose: to provide shelter.

We’ve come to expect houses to look and work a certain way, and to be made of certain materials. In our part of the world, those materials are usually brick, wood, and concrete.

But what if there was a completely different—and possibly better—way to build a house?

An innovator named Buckminster Fuller had an idea to create mass-produced, affordable homes. In the mid-1940s, with new technologies and soldiers returning home from World War II, Fuller began to build prototypes of his design. He called it the Dymaxion House.

The dome-shaped structure was created from lightweight metal alloy parts that could be easily shipped. Fuller also designed useful living areas and creative storage spaces into the circular floor plan.

The only surviving prototype of the Dymaxion House sits right now in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation.