Designing a cardboard chair

Dan Goldstein has been working on a cardboard chair prototype for six years, and he has come up with something he liked enough to launch a (successful) Kickstarter campaign to put it into production.

Goldstein has been building prototypes of this chair for over six years now and they have survived constant use in his house. He says, “As long as you don’t leave them in the rain they will last. I have IKEA furniture that is de-laminating and these are still fine. It’s just four layers of basic, heavy duty cardboard from any type of box and once you’ve laminated it over a mould it just kind of sticks in place."

In fact, one of Goldstein’s aims is to change the way we think about cardboard. As the material is generally used for disposable products such as boxes and containers, we perceive the material as having a very short life span. Goldstein wants to change this perception. “One of the aims is to make cardboard into something permanent. It is always just used in boxes that we toss away but it doesn’t have to be that way. That is one thing I like about the steel frame base, it puts it in the context of something durable and permanent.”

Above: Working out the design of the base.

Upcycling: Designing the cardboard chair

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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http://artdonovan.typepad.com Art

I would have enjoyed seeing a more aggressively new configuration rather than the standard chair shapes. This would amplify the uniqueness of the materials used.
http://twitter.com/writebastard Ian Wood

Very cool. “Permanent” may be a bit of overreach, though.
pjcamp

I always cut the pelt off my cardboard first.

It makes a dandy felt hat.
Olorwen

You might enjoy Chairigami as well: http://www.chairigami.com/our-stuff.html
cdh1971

Hey Goldstein -

The reason your Ikea furniture delaminates is because you don’t believe in it enough!

I really hope you don’t have kids!
Thorzdad

Way back in the mists of time, when I was in art school, one of our assignments in materials class was to construct a chair using a single 4×8 sheet of corrugated cardboard. The only rules were the chair had to be constructed using only the single sheet of cardboard (no frameworks like these or other pieces of cardboard) support our own weight, and not use any connectors (tape, staples, etc.) and no glue.

I used my chair for several years afterward.
http://beautifulsynthesis.com Andrea

Cool! I mean, we make furniture out of sawdust (particle board and pressboard), why not cardboard?
Donald Petersen

Years ago I had occasion to visit the upscale home of a certain Hollywood film producer. In his living room was a six-foot sofa made entirely of loosely-folded and gently-crushed layers of corrugated cardboard. It was among the most comfortable sofas my ass has been blessed to visit. Never caught the name of the artist responsible, but I was given to understand that the sofa was by that point several years old, and got more comfortable by the year.