tag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-1389617 2009-11-04T06:00:00-08:00 TypePad tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00e54ecb9a1888330120a6a54d40970c 2009-11-04T06:00:00-08:00 2009-11-03T22:58:06-08:00

Arkitektura in San Francisco is having its famous annual Sale this weekend. You can get discounts of 20% to 70% on their broad selection of classic modern design. This sale is legendary and would be hard to improve. As it happens, however, we're moving out of our warehouse this fall and will have a serious space problem during the transition. What to do? We've decided to include Piet Hein Eek's furniture as part of Arkitektura's sale. It's the first time his work has been offered at a discount, and possibly the last. This includes some great new pieces we just...

Rob Forbes tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00e54ecb9a1888330120a6790cad970c 2009-10-28T06:00:00-07:00 2009-10-27T23:06:51-07:00

Bikes serve many purposes. They give us speed, agility, and utility; they help us exercise and grant us independence. They carry risks and can be dangerous in extreme situations. They can stimulate us intellectually and erotically (I'm not the only one, am I?). They also both give rise to and reflect local communities and cultures, and this might be their most magical and underappreciated quality. I was reminded of this recently when I attended two back-to-back bike events on opposite coasts this month: I was a juror for part of a bike design contest at the Oregon Manifest, and a...

Rob Forbes tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00e54ecb9a1888330120a5d87af9970b 2009-10-14T06:00:00-07:00 2009-10-26T14:48:09-07:00

Musicians and Bikers are not conventionally grouped together. Not on the streets; not in literature. So it makes perfect sense that David Byrne stands at the intersection of these two pursuits. He recently completed his book Bicycle Diaries, a culmination of 30 years of bike rides and observations from city streets around the world. We have 50 signed copies of the book available (sold out). And if you sign up on our new Public website we'll have many other bike related items in the near future. Reading Byrnes' book is a lot like taking a bike ride through a new...

Rob Forbes tag:typepad.com,2003:post-67421617 2009-06-02T08:20:00-07:00 2009-06-02T17:06:36-07:00

Our AIA event drew a critical mass of designers and bikers, packing our modest studio for the evening and keeping our San Francisco Bike Coalition bike valet busy. Thanks to everyone who came by, especially to those who rode to the event and the guy who bought the Alta bike we auctioned off for the Bike Coalition. The bikes we had on display were hard to view because of the crowd, so we have listed their pedigrees below with some photos. Most of these bikes are on loan from American Cyclery which has been a leading San Francisco destination for...

Rob Forbes tag:typepad.com,2003:post-67070251 2009-05-21T08:42:27-07:00 2009-05-20T15:02:21-07:00

The upside of Royalty has never been clear to me. Kings and Queens seem to function mostly as expensive ways to preserve an outdated system of social inequities and pumped up national self-importance. But I may have gotten a glimpse of what all the fuss is about on a recent trip to Cordoba Spain for a design ceremony. Cordoba is most well known for its historic Mosque (Mesquite), not for contemporary design. Each year Spain holds their Premio Nacionales de Diseno (National Design Award). The government appoints a jury to bestow the prestigious honor on two design firms. They rotate...

Rob Forbes