Guinea Pig B

In 1927, at age thirty-two, Buckminster Fuller stood at the edge of Lake Michigan and considered whether to throw himself in. He was bankrupt, his first child had died, his company had failed, and he was drinking heavily. He did not jump. Instead he made a decision he later described as the beginning of an experiment: he would treat his remaining years as an investigation — 'Guinea Pig B,' the B standing for Bucky — into what one individual without wealth, institutional backing, or specialized credentials could contribute to the betterment of the human condition. The experiment had a single governing question: what could one person accomplish committed entirely to comprehensive design for the benefit of all, refusing personal profit and accepting only the resources the work itself attracted? The experiment lasted fifty-six years. Its products included the geodesic dome, the Dymaxion projects, the concept of Spaceship Earth, the World Game, and a body of work that influenced