I think one of the base concepts you will need to discuss with your students is "tool". What is a tool? What elevates a tool to craft or to artisan status? Why do we elevate some tools to iconic status and not others?
I have one Riv, an Atlantis. When I got it, it was dead winter in Wisconsin, so riding in salty snow/ice was out of the question. I put it in the living room and enjoyed looking at it. The lugs, the tubes, the braze-ons, all the things that make Atlantis special I observed, and I was fascinated. In my living room was the apex of steel development. Grant had taken the Euro-bike tradition: emphasized comfort and function, and updated it with better geometry and better components. I had expensive Raleighs in their day. I had paper-bikes that resembled Worksman bikes, heavy and super durable. But in my living room I had a dream bike: beautiful, supremely functional, and incredibly useful. Bikes can be like that if you ride them extensively. They are tools. The design issue is simple. It was clear that Grant loved his product. His heart is all over it and within it. Your students should understand that committment. That committment separates functional from craft. On Wednesday, February 17, 2016 at 6:10:42 PM UTC-6, Surlyprof wrote: > > For those of you who don’t know me, in addition to wanting a Rivendell > bicycle for years, owning a Hillborne for a year or two and being a member > of this group for over a year, I am also a professor of Industrial Design. > This semester I have been teaching my course entitled, “Design and > Meaning”. The goal of the course is to prompt our students to explore > various roles that meaning plays in the industrial design profession. A > portion of the time we look at the more artistic side of design and how > designers express ideas using industrial design as a medium for > expression. Another aspect of the class covers semiotics and semantics and > how designers can utilize form to communicate function. The third topic of > the course deals with meaning that people associate with and attach to the > built environment that surrounds them. As one of the lectures, I’ve been > trying to pull together a lecture about RBW. It seems to me that there are > interesting connections between RBW, Grant’s ideas and meaning for many of > us who own Rivendell bikes and accessories, belong to this group and/or the > Facebook group, and believe in a cycling lifestyle that may veer from > current mainstream bicycle culture. This is where my question lies… How > do you connect meaning (however you interpret that) with RBW, Grant’s > writings, bicycles in general and the design of bikes and other goods at > RBW (as well as B,B&H)? Are there design choices made at RBW that boosts > that sense of meaning? > > > Rather than presenting the students with just my take on that subject, I > thought I'd solicit the thoughts of group members. I’d be happy to field > your thoughts via private responses but, if everyone is OK with this as a > topic of open discussion, I think it might be a fun one to be shared in the > group forum. Also, this is intended only for a course > lecture/presentation and, even in that limited audience of 24 students, I > will do all I can to protect every individual’s anonymity. If this grows > into something particularly interesting worth publishing somewhere, I would > want to communicate with contributors before publishing anything anywhere. > > > So, there it is… any thoughts? > > John > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
