- Introduction & Mission

Our goal was create a project that was relevant to college students and, as always, to challenge conventional thinking about sustainability. We found that as college students, we deal with very little reality. Our food is prepared, the electricity bills are paid, and we never have to mow the lawn. However, one reality we deal with more than most is relocating (between college and home). Imagine moving everything you own twice, sometimes more, times a year. It can become very tiresome, especially if you want large furniture. We asked the question: How could be both improve this situation while introducing sustainability? The "Cardboard Chair" project was born. Light, recyclable, cheap, and comparably comfortable – Cardboard furniture has all the workings of a great solution.

I think this dramatized introduction does it the best:

"As college students, we see the tragedy of furniture abuse on a daily basis. From spilt drinks to withstanding piles of people, our furniture goes through a lot! It’s no wonder that so many sofas, chairs, and tables simply end up in the dumpster at the end of the semester.

We knew that furniture abuse at college wasn’t going to change, but we thought maybe we could change the furniture. We wanted to offer students, staff, and parents an alternative.

Cardboard furniture - tough, cheap, and made out of 100% reused cardboard."

Overall, we want to present cardboard furniture as a viable option as opposed to currently available dorm room furniture. Additionally, we will introduce sustainable practices by reusing waste cardboard to build said furniture (rather than recycling it, saving energy needed to do so).

Our first prototype is based on Frank Gehry’s “Wiggle Chair," popularized in the 1970’s. Gehry discovered that cardboard layered many times builds enough strength to make it suitable for the everyday use. He went on to create a series of furniture objects, such as the "Easy Edges Wiggle" side chair, that take advantage of the versatility of cardboard as a medium. We will do the same with our chair.

- Design

Looking at past success we choose to build a well known design similar to Frank Gehry's "Wiggle Chair." This design allows us to virtually insure structural soundness, a necessity for dorm rooms. Another advantage of this design lies in its simplicity – A chair profile shape repeated roughly 60 times. Below describes the development of tool, specifically a cutter die, to help make this profile shape repeatable and quickly produced.

Above on left, the template I used to design the cutter die. I projected this image onto plywood and, after scaling the image correctly, traced the design. Above on the right, is an example of the "Wiggle Chair."

To build this die We routed out the traced plywood and wedged a bandsaw (MEASUREMENTS) blade into the grove.

Above, the finished die cutter.

- Cutter Die Operation

The operation of the cutting die is fairly simple. 1) Place cardboard between the 'bladed' board and the non-bladed board. 2) Align boards with dowels. 3) Jump on board. 4) Remove board, pull out cutout. See video below:

Note: I made up a word in the video. "Unveal," an odd mixture of the word 'reveal' and 'unveil' both meaning to make visible.

- Conclusion

We can let the image speak for itself.

To save cardboard we employed this alternating pattern. This method saves weight, cardboard, and manpower. Hopefully you’ll agree it’s a chair worth sitting in.

Note that this is only the first prototype design, Club FEAST does plan to explore alternative, less cardboard dense, designs in the future. The chair is now sitting in the "Hide-away" in the Physics and Engineering Department and, so far, holding up very well.

+This is project made possible by Club FEAST (Future Energies And Sustainable Technologies). Club FEAST is a campus organization that focuses on creating innovative new ideas that can help make the world more sustainable (www.etown.edu/feast).

+Poster I created for a visual display about the project. [PDF]