Designed for Mobility
When we hear “mobility” mentioned in a design context these days, everyone immediately thinks of mobile phones. Designing for mobility tends to equate to miniaturization. Make it fit in a pocket. Make it wearable. Make it light and slim, yet durable and feature rich.
Tonight I was thinking about designing for mobility at the other end of the spectrum. There are some things that just can’t be made smaller. Musical instruments are a great example. They are a specific size for a reason, yet must still be mobile. I am a percussionist, myself, so a great example of designing for mobility that immediately comes to my mind is a concert marimba. Marimbas vary in size depending on the number of octaves, but even the small ones are relatively large. In other words, you can’t put them in a case and toss them in the trunk. And yet, they do have to be transported from one location to another, as most musical groups, be they high school concert bands, drum and bugle corps, or professional orchestras, travel to perform.
The instruments are designed to make this relatively easy. In the case of a marimba, designing for mobility equates to disassembly. The keys are strung together and are lifted off the top, a few boards and two banks of resonators slide out, and two wing nuts release structural support braces. You end up with 10 pieces in short order. Of course, most of those pieces are rather long, so they are each hinged in the middle and fold in half. The whole thing tears down in no more than five minutes, ready to pack.
Set-up isn’t much more difficult. There are spacers between the flats and sharps, so the keys lay right back down on their supports without requiring any thought. The tension on the strings that connect and support the keys is supplied by springs on either end that hook together.
The ease with which this process is accomplished speaks volumes about the amount of thought and craft that has gone into the instrument on top of the requirements that it be beautiful both musically and as an object.
