I'd ask you all to run out and buy it, but it's pricey ($175 to you chaps, £80 for us).
It's a monumental study of industrial and product design published by Phaidon - 999 Design Classics. I researched and wrote 17 of its entries. You can see a rather swish Flash presentation about the (three volume!) project here:
http://www.phaidon.com/designclassics/designclassics.htmlAnd as a special "treat" here are some snippets of the bits I wrote: :boring:
Although it had relatives and predecessors in the US, it was a radical departure for the UK and proved instantly popular. There are many causes of this success, and many reasons the bike embedded itself so firmly as the symbol of a 1970s childhood. For a start, the UK launch by chance coincided with the release of the film Easy Rider, which glamorised and popularised the biker culture of the States, and the Chopper resembled the low-riding hogs in the film. Also, its pure difference was alluring; its geometric frame, wheel ratio, seat and handlebars were completely distinctive. But perhaps the most important factor was that it looked and felt tough – it looked as though it had been designed with more grown-up priorities than most bikes, a product of motorcycle and car design. (The gearstick was an important part of this; advertising played on how it made the Chopper more like a racing car than a bike.) It felt as though it treated kids like adults.
(From the story of the "Chopper" BMX)
The seasonal and recreational uses of the folding garden chair have vested in it a great deal of charm. It is as much a part of the mental image of the bank holiday weekend or seaside excursion as the ice cream or knotted handkerchief. By happy accident, it seems ideally designed for enforced relaxation. It is impossible to sit up straight in a deck chair – the seated person is forced to recline. Few useful tasks can be accomplished from a deck chair other than reading or dozing. Once you’re in a deck chair, you’re not only going to have to do very little but stretch out and watch the passing scene, you’re also going to be there for a while – they’re quite difficult to get out of. The deck chair, for all its no-nonsense roots and practicality, is the ultimate labour-saving device – a machine for maximising idleness.
(From the origins of the deck chair)
The term “tensegrity” was coined by American architect Buckminster Fuller to refer to large structures that exist in a state of perfect tensional equilibrium - the forces pushing outward from the structure are cancelled out by circumferential forces banding the structure. Pressure applied anywhere to the structure is distributed evenly through it. Fuller’s renowned geodesic domes are an obvious example of tensegrity, but the principle is so elegant that not only are these domes theoretically unlimited in size, they also have applications in nanotechnology and have been assembled on a molecular level. Whatever the scale, the same rules apply.
(From the uses of "Buckyballs" in the design of footballs)
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