Space Housing

These “Moon Houses” were inspired by the half-forgoten Dymaxion (for DYnamic MAXimum tensION) Houses created by the philosophic designer Buckminster Fuller. In an article entitled “How to be comfortable, though bombed,” published in the Galveston Daily News of Sunday, October 19, 1941, the first sample Dymaxion House ordered by the Navy is described as follows by the journalist visiting it:
"Yesterday, I played house in a steel something that looks like an open parachute from above, like a silo from the outside and like an orange inside."
Called “Dymaxion Deployment Units” these houses—actually two siamese cylinders of corrugated steel—were suggested for defense housing, evacuation buildings, barracks or bomb shelters. They could accomodate twenty-four people in double-decker bunks or family of six. Such was their design that they could be shipped knocked down like mail order catalog products. They could be put up in about three days by unskilled workers and were fabricated at the incredible pace of one thousand per day.
Complete with bathroom, a cosy corner, kitchen, ventilation and electric heating, the inner space could be divided in separated bedrooms by screens or curtains hanging from the sides, or reunited as a large circular room.
Earthquakes and hurricanes demonstrated the indestructability of the Dymaxion construction. They could serve as bombshelters in times of war and beach retreats in time of peace. Some rare samples are still standing, abandonned and in pretty bad condition, all over the United States.
The above picture just shows an extra use for these incredible houses that its original designers never thought of—moon housing.