James T. Baldwin
James T. Baldwin | |
|---|---|
 Jay Baldwin was acting team leader during the step by step dismantling of the Dymaxion Dwelling Machine near Wichita, Kansas. | |
| Born | May 6, 1933 |
| Died | March 2, 2018 (aged 84) |
| Pen name | Jay Baldwin |
| Occupation | Industrial designer and writer |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | University of Michigan |
| Notable works | Inventor of the "Pillow Dome" |
James Tennant Baldwin (May 6, 1933 – March 2, 2018), often known as Jay Baldwin or J. Baldwin, was an American
Life and work
J. Baldwin, born the son of an engineer, once said that, at 18, he heard Buckminster Fuller speak for 14 hours non-stop. This was in 1951 at the University of Michigan, where Baldwin had enrolled to learn automobile design because a friend of his had been killed in a car accident that Baldwin attributed to bad design. He worked with Fuller prior to graduation from U. of M. in 1955. During his student years, Baldwin worked (in a unique job sharing role) in an auto factory assembly line. He went on to do graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley.[4]
Baldwin remained a friend of Buckminster Fuller, and reflected that "By example, he encouraged me to think for myself comprehensively, to be disciplined, to work for the good of everyone, and to have a good time doing it."[5]
As a young designer in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Baldwin designed advanced camping equipment with Bill Moss Associates. Thereafter, he taught simultaneously at San Francisco State College (now called
The period 1968-69 found him both a visiting lecturer at Southern Illinois University and the design editor of the innovative Whole Earth Catalog. The Catalog came out in many editions between 1968 and 1998, and Baldwin continued to edit and write for both the Catalog and an offshoot publication, CoEvolution Quarterly, later renamed Whole Earth Review. In the early 1970s, Baldwin taught at Pacific High School.[4]
Baldwin was at the center of experimentation with geodesic domes, an unconventional building-design approach – explored by Fuller – that maximizes strength and covered area in relation to materials used. He also dove enthusiastically into the application of renewable energy sources in homes and in food-production facilities, working with Integrated Life Support Systems Laboratories (ILS, in New Mexico) and with Dr. John Todd and the other New Alchemists involved with "The Ark" project. Baldwin's initial involvement with solar energy was during that very experimental, ad-lib phase when much was moving from principles or theory into actual development. In the 1970s, at ILS, he was the co-developer of what was touted as the world's first building to be heated and otherwise powered by solar and wind power exclusively.
At
Baldwin referred to his own rural home as "a three-dimensional sketchpad".[2]
During the first
With the ears of a wider audience in the 1980s, Baldwin developed an incisive critique of the
Given his long-term role as a "technology" editor, it is worth mentioning the scope of Baldwin's focus on technology. His interests remained broader than that represented in the shifting media and popular focus of the mid-1980s and later, which inclined to highlight the micro chip and electronic devices based on it. Baldwin continued to point out the value of (and need for evaluation of) technologies within a larger perimeter. Certainly shelter and transportation technologies always interested him. So did tools – and whether a device or tool or process was freshly innovative or age-old in concept, if it enabled a person to "do the job" with wood, metal, fiberglass panels, soil, trees, etc, it remained worthy of Baldwin's attention.[2] Whereas the personal computer often (though not necessarily) inclines its operator toward imagination, almost in the sense of entertainment, Baldwin remained equally interested in doing, in application. And while he never ceased to be interested in the products of the factory, Baldwin always wanted to empower individuals and small teams of people to accomplish something worthwhile.
Baldwin, as one of the notable designer-technologists whose cross-disciplinary approaches have opened new territory, was featured in the 1994 documentary film Ecological Design: Inventing the Future. The film viewed these designers as "outlaws" whose careers had necessarily developed "outside the box" of their time, largely unsupported by mainstream industry and often beyond the pale of mainstream academia, as well.
Baldwin invented a permanent, transparent, insulated
Baldwin continued to practice design (as exemplified in the unique and aerodynamic 'mobile-room' Quick-Up camper he put on the market) and to teach design at the college level up until 2016. Between the early 1990s and 2016 he taught at
Baldwin died on March 2, 2018, at the age of 84.
Books
- Author: Why You Can't Fly, 2015, ISBN 9781516863273.
- Author: BuckyWorks: Buckminster Fuller's Ideas for Today, 1997, ISBN 0-471-19812-9.
- Co-editor (with Stewart Brand and others): Whole Earth Catalogs, 1968–1998.
- Co-editor (with ISBN 0-14-004806-5.
- Editor ISBN 0-517-57658-9.
References
- ISBN 978-0-470-24669-6. Retrieved October 23, 2010.
- ^ ISBN 0-9650306-9-5.
- ISBN 978-0-7006-1545-2. Retrieved October 23, 2010.
- ^ ISBN 0-14-004806-5.
- John Wiley & Sons, p. xi.
- The New Alchemy Institute.
- ^ Buckminster Fuller Institute. Archived from the original(PDF) on June 17, 2012.
External links
- J. Baldwin – Solutioneering
- Hypercar Concept
- Pillow Dome Description
- About 450 on-line book reviews and articles by J. Baldwin
- Solar Energy and Solar-integrated Architecture
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