Butler Manufacturing Company
Butler Manufacturing Company of Kansas City, the grain-bin and metal-building manufacturer whose standard product Fuller adapted into the Dymaxion Deployment Unit.
In 1940 Fuller left Fortune magazine and started the deployment unit of the Butler Manufacturing Company in Kansas City. Butler already made metal buildings used as radar shacks and as dormitories for U.S. flyers and mechanics — an existing industrial capability rather than a new one.
The Dymaxion Deployment Unit was a 20-foot diameter corrugated steel circular hut: essentially a converted Butler grain bin adapted for emergency shelter. The Army Signal Corps commissioned 200 units at $1,250 each in 1942, and they were deployed to the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, and Pacific theatres. A wartime shortage of steel then resulted in the cancellation of the programme.
Role in Fuller's world
Butler Manufacturing is Fuller's proof that mass-produced shelter did not require a new industry — only a redirected one. Converting a grain bin into a deployable dwelling is the purest instance of his method: take an existing high-volume artefact and reassign it to human shelter.
See Also
- Dymaxion Deployment Unit — the shelter converted from Butler's grain bin
- Fuller and the Military — the Signal Corps commission in context
Sources
- Dymaxion Deployment Unit — the 200-unit 1942 order, unit cost, and steel-shortage cancellation
- Buckminster Fuller — New World Encyclopedia — Fuller starting Butler's deployment unit in 1940 and Butler's radar-shack production
- Fuller and the Military — the DDU as converted grain bin and its theatres of deployment