Rice university

[Keith Erickson]

It's too bad that I'm way across the otherside of the great state of Texas. I would have loved to try to all of these mandolins

[mrmando]

I think I just died and went to heaven...

It's not surprising that YOU went to heaven, Ted, but did you expect to find all of US there?

[mrmando]

I see a strong Dave Cohen influence at work here too. And maybe a little James Condino.

Last summer Fletcher Brock was sketching out a wacky 4-point design. Wonder how that one's coming along?

[John Bertotti]

I hope some of the builders of these instruments pipes up. HELLO!!! We know you are watching now. Please join us, you'll get some good discussion. Again great job to all of you.

[David Newton]

Just 90 miles from me, maybe it will be still there...
I met Stephen Marcionne at the GAL last spring, he's a serious good classic builder.

[Scott Tichenor]

Just received some images from David Guthrie, one of the instructors, and saw a message board registration for Marchione so hopefully we'll hear from him in the near future. David shared a bunch of photographs and I'll try to post those over the weekend, but this one of the class next to their works had to be made available now.

[cooper4205]

that pic shows them better, they all look nice; i can't wait to hear more details about the class and how they were built

[grandmainger]

I see 11 mandos and 10 students... Which one is the odd one out

[stevenmando]

wow great designs all of them, I can see the future in the eyes of every one of the students I think the future is going to be an interesting one for all the nation with talent like that, dont,t waver in your goals we all need you the future is in you talented hands.

[lanexa]

Amazing work, folks. Hard to tell, but it looks like both flat and carved tops?

[delsbrother]

No harp mandolins?! SLACKERS!

Seriously, great work everyone! I wish my Architecture prof would've given me an assignment like that! I might've actually become an Architect, LOL.

[Scott Tichenor]

One more picture between running errands...

[dshilo]

Hello,
I'm the 5th mandolin from the right, the person that's not below their mandolin in the picture. To answer a couple questions: we all carved tops and backs using f-style plans except for one, who used flat-top a-style plans. My personal influences were mainly Condino and Breedlove, although were all required to derive and fine-tune our own personal designs by hand and put final designs into the computer. The posters you see in the above picture will hopefully be available soon! Thanks for all your positive feedback everyone, we're really proud of these little instruments.

[Mando Mando]

Hey Everyone~!

I'm one of the students who build a mandolin for this studio, and I'm deeply touched by all of your enthusiasm, excitement, and kind words. In the photo above I'm the 4th from the right, and so is my mandolin. I can assuredly speak for my entire class when I express how much we loved this past semester and how great it was to produce a final product that was something both tangible and usuable. For any of you that are interested.... feel free to check out some photos from my website of our class working on our projects all semester as well as some class trips we took to austin to check out the collins guitar / mandolin factory and the gibson showroom, and the individual progress of my own mandolin. As of now I don't have every photo up, especially the more recent ones that I've taken, but there are a fair amount of galleries up now... (and more to come!)

Here are the links for the photogalleries:

http://marcusroman.com/photos1....es.html

http://marcusroman.com/photos1....an.html

http://marcusroman.com/photos1....in.html

http://marcusroman.com/photos14/In%2...%20Studio.html

http://marcusroman.com/photos14/More...Chiseling.html

http://marcusroman.com/photos1....es.html

http://marcusroman.com/photos1....ma.html

http://marcusroman.com/photos1....av.html

http://marcusroman.com/photos14/Mand...o%20Mando.html

http://marcusroman.com/photos1....ng.html

http://marcusroman.com/photos1....in.html

Again thanks so much for all that you have said....
and be on the look out for a book that we may be trying to pruduce in the upcoming months or year...

-Marcus Roman
mroman@rice.edu

[Marchione]

Greetings Everyone, I'm Stephen Marchione and I taught the Rice Studio Project with David Guthrie. The students were amazing and worked very hard! The idea was twofold: first, as an exercise in commercial musical instrument design and second, for them to build their own design on a one to one scale. None of them are Mandolinists but I chose the Mandolin for them because of it's size and the freedom the designer has in the idiom. Anyway, I'm happy to get to know all of you as well, and I look forward to teaching more of these Studios in the future in order to share more thought provoking designs.
Best Wishes,
Stephen Marchione # # http://www.marchione.com

[JEStanek]

My how architecture students change. While at Virginia Tech all the architecture students wore all black. The only way to tell them from the theater students was the architects looked like they had eaten but not slept in 2 weeks! You guys look great and your mandos look great too! Congratulations on your builds!

dshilo, you had good influences!

Jamie

[DryBones]

I want to buy the 3rd mando from the right! Somebody get me some contact info!

[delsbrother]

Interesting - was no CNC a constraint, or a choice?

[John Bertotti]

I wish my classes had that guy to girl ratio. I would of pursued it more. I am still speechless as to what you all have accomplished. I really hope this isn't the last instrument you all build.

[sunburst]

I almost feel like I should post a picture of my shop now, being a mandolin builder who designed and built (make that; is building) his own shop!

Cool project! Makes me wish I was younger and back in school! (And that college still costs what it did when I went...)

[Scott Tichenor]

Going to post another picture sent to me which I know is impossibly too wide for the web, but why not have a little fun with it?

[Scott Tichenor]

[Scott Tichenor]

[Scott Tichenor]

[Scott Tichenor]

Wanted to share one final portion of the email I received from David Guthrie. I think we'll all find this very interesting. Here's that snippet:

------------

We are producing a book over the summer and I'm editing a video documentary that looks promising. There's lots of graphic material to share with you and the students' written reflections of the experience are very powerful.

I've never had a group of students that came away with nearly the level of knowledge, confidence, satisfaction or joy that this one has. What they achieved in a semester has inspired people from all over the university and beyond. It certainly has inspired me.

More soon,

David Guthrie
GS Wortham Assistant Professor
Rice School of Architecture