American industrial designer and architect, J. Baldwin, Died at 85

  Artists, Business

James Tennant Baldwin was born in 1933 and died on March 5, 2018.

His other publishing names are J. Baldwin, Jay Baldwin, and James T. Baldwin.

He was an American industrial designer and writer.

He was a student of Buckminster Fuller; Baldwin’s work was inspired by Fuller’s principles and (in the case of some of Baldwin’s published writing) has popularized and interpreted Fuller’s ideas and achievements.

Baldwin in his own right has been a figure in American designers’ efforts to incorporate solar, wind, and other renewable sources of energy.

During his career, being a fabricator has been as important as being a designer.

He was noted as the inventor of the “Pillow Dome,” a design that combines Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome with panels of inflated ETFE plastic panels.

He to practice design (as exemplified in the unique and aerodynamic ‘mobile-room’ Quick-Up camper he has put on the market) and to teach design at the college level up until 2016.

During the early 1990’s and 2016, Baldwin taught at Sonoma State University, San Francisco Institute of Architecture and at California College of Arts & Crafts.

Baldwin died on March 5, 2018, at 85 years old.