Advertisement

The latest home decorating trend is … cardboard

Cardboard is a sustainable, eco-friendly material with plenty of design potential.

Shigeru Ban’s award-winning design (the Pritzker Architecture Prize, no less) for Christchurch’s ingenious ‘cardboard cathedral’ makes you do a double take.

02-transitional_cardboard_cathedral_with_fence_at_night

The cathedral may not be completely cardboard, and it IS transitional, but it’s also right on trend.

 

Cleverly designed cardboard furniture, from beds to bookshelves and chairs that tap into mid-century modernism, is proving to be a clever way to furnish.

Why cardboard?

Cardboard has serious design cred. We’ve already mentioned the cardboard cathedral, and if you need aesthetic reassurance, there is the sculptural Wiggle Side Chair, designed in the 1970s by the famed Frank Gehry (architect of the iconic Guggenheim Bilbao). The sleekly sinuous Wiggle, constructed of layered corrugated cardboard in one continuous loop, put a new spin on the design possibilities of this everyday material.

03-Vitra_WiggleSideChair--Space-(furniture)

 

This is more your top-of-the-range cardboard furniture (ie rather expensive) – the design is in the collection of New York’s MoMA, as well as the Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum and Melbourne’s NGV, but – if you are after high-end cardboard chic – the Wiggle is in production by Vitra and available at Space.

010-Karton-ecodeer

At the more everyday, flat-pack end of the market there are plenty of other reasons to choose cardboard. Affordability is definitely one – you can kit out a whole room for a few hundred dollars. It’s eco-wise. Cardboard itself is made from recycled materials and then you recycle the cardboard into furniture. The furniture is practical, lightweight and portable. It’s also simple to assemble (you don’t need any tools or glue – you don’t even need an allen key).

If you are setting up house for a short time, you can put your furniture together, then when you move on, flatten it and take it with you. Or store it. It’s versatile and surprisingly sturdy.

 

Karton’s Paperpedic bed, for example, has a cardboard base that can be set up as anything from a single to a mega king size, ‘with a load capacity close to a ton’ (we’re guessing in case you have mega size friends stay over). There are even nifty drawers to make up and slide underneath for extra storage.

04-Karton-paperpedic-bed

You can buy shelving, with extra strong shelves for books, or box sets for office files and chests of drawers. A desk can be a table, a stool can be a coffee table.

05-Karton--bed-

 

You can even decorate with cardboard. Why not an eco deer on the wall? Or perhaps a cardboard eco cat in the corner?

09-Karton-eco-cat

While most of the cardboard furniture tends to be cardboard brown in colour there’s nothing to stop you giving it a personal touch with some water-based paints.

One of Karton’s inspirational pieces is the Dutch Design Chair, which comes in a range of printed patterns, from a faded country timber look to butterfly florals and the trompe l’oeil style of the ‘Heavy Metal’ chair (below).

08-Dutch-Design-Chair---heavymetal

 

Posh cardboard chairs

For those seeking a little more mid-century modern style, there’s Re-Ply a minimalist ‘eco-recliner’ designed by San Francisco-based Dan Goldstein. It’s so eco-wise it’s actually made from upcycled cardboard boxes and that also means each chair is just that little bit different.

014-Re-ply-chair-

And it rocks – on a triangular metal base. You can’t buy the Re-Ply in Australia as yet, but it’s recently been funded by Kickstarter, so who knows?

A bright idea

Light fittings are an intrinsic part of stylish contemporary interiors, so you might also consider some cardboard lamps and light shades. The Portuguese-based Vicara is known for its innovative design.

Their corrugated cardboard ‘Cartonado’ suspension lamp, designed by Fabio Afonso comes in a range of profiles, including a chandelier shape.

012Cartonado-Candeeiro-Lamp-by-Fabio-Afonso-VICARA-1

There’s also a very cute little laser-cut lampshade. You can order them all online, and assemble them when they arrive.

And if you can’t see what you like in the cardboard furniture range on line, why not make your own?

Naturally there is a YouTube How To …

Christchurch Cathedral images Courtesy of christchurchnz.com.

Stay informed, daily
A FREE subscription to The New Daily arrives every morning and evening.
The New Daily is a trusted source of national news and information and is provided free for all Australians. Read our editorial charter
Copyright © 2024 The New Daily.
All rights reserved.