but also the Sylow p-subgroup of G together with all fusion among its subgroups, are determined up to isomorphism by the homotopy type of BG ∧ p . Our goal here is to give a direct link between p-local structures and homotopy types which arise from them. This theory tries to make explicit the essence of what it means to be the p-completed classifying space of a finite group, and at the same time yields new spaces which are not of this type, but which still enjoy most of the properties a space of the form BG ∧ p would have. We hope that the ideas presented here will have further applications and generalizations in algebraic topology. But this theory also fits well with certain aspects of modular representation theory. In particular, it may give a way of constructing classifying spaces for blocks in the group ring of a finite group over an algebraically closed field of characteristic p.A saturated fusion system F over a p-group S consists of a set Hom F (P, Q) of monomorphisms, for each pair of subgroups P, Q ≤ S, which form a category under composition, include all monomorphisms induced by conjugation in S, and satisfy certain other axioms formulated by Puig (Definitions 1.1 and 1.2 below). In particular, these axioms are satisfied by the conjugacy homomorphisms in a finite group. We refer to [Pu] and [Pu2] for more details of Puig's work on saturated