Sustainable and recyclable, paper and cardboard furniture has finally shed the image of being cheap and aesthetically poor that it once had. It has become beautiful.
Paper and cardboard furniture is sustainable because it is recyclable or because it is already made from cardboard derived from recycled paper. Compared to the past, today it is also beautiful. These are products made with advanced technologies that contain no adhesives, because their assembly systems work by interlocking and folding, developed in a thousand intelligent variations by designers who use this material to create every type of product, ranging from design to architecture.
The use of cardboard in the furniture and design sector began many years ago with experimental products, such as the well-known Wiggle chair designed by architect Frank O. Gehry and produced by Vitra in 1972, which aroused the interest and curiosity of the public at a time when discussion on the topic of recycling was only just beginning.
Since then, cardboard furniture has come a long way and has enjoyed widespread adoption and use. In industrialised countries, awareness of and attention to paper recycling has grown, alongside the need to communicate. At the same time, these products have acquired considerable aesthetic quality, shedding that image of "transitory objects" that were sometimes a little dreary. Today it is possible to make virtuous sustainable choices without sacrificing the need to have beautiful, quality objects in one's home. What is sustainable must also be beautiful.
In 2011, in the halls of the Diocesan Museum of Milan, the exhibition Vivere e pensare in carta e cartone tra arte e design was staged, promoted by the Consorzio nazionale recupero e riciclo degli imballaggi (Comieco). The expressive languages of 23 international designers brought the aesthetic of paper to life. On that occasion, design took the form of nomadic, minimal objects capable of generating new forms of sociality, but also rich in soul and feeling, capable of generating emotion through new forms and new production technologies, such as laser cutting, as well as through ancient techniques revisited in a contemporary key, such as papier-mâché. Design, whether inspired by tradition or attentive to the most advanced technologies, today offers the discerning consumer who chooses sustainable products a wide choice of objects, home accessories and durable, quality furniture. Sustainability, for example, is the central theme of the production of paper home objects and furnishing accessories by Essent'ial, one of the most forward-thinking and experimental brands working with cellulose fibre and cardboard.
"My idea," says Albano Ghizzoni, founder of the Essent'ial brand created in 2006, "is to create a line of sustainable products with refined design, where the choice of materials and manufacturing process is the result of responsible behaviour. Sustainability, reuse and design are the keywords of the project I am pursuing with products in which the choice of materials and manufacturing takes place in full respect of the environment. For me, recycling is a concept, a fundamental element of education. We have embraced it fully, including in our business concepts."
Whether corrugated or honeycomb, cardboard is a lightweight material. Corrugated cardboard consists of two flat paper surfaces enclosing a corrugated paper layer within. The combined action of the flat surfaces and the internal fluting gives the material rigidity and strength. Like honeycomb cardboard — so called because its internal structure resembles that of a beehive — it is an extremely easy material to work with: it can be cut, shaped, milled and assembled, making it highly versatile in its applications. But not all cardboard furniture is lightweight.
Lightness is an indispensable requirement for temporary cardboard furniture and accessories, used at trade fairs, exhibitions and conferences, as it is a determining factor in ensuring speed of transport and ease of assembly. But lightness and ease of assembly are not the primary requirements when it comes to furnishing products for homes, shops or offices. In these cases, solidity, stability and strength are the main qualities demanded of cardboard tables, chairs and bookshelves designed to last over time. The versatility of cardboard also lies in this capacity to meet such different usage requirements.
The idea that cardboard is a weak and short-lived material is a myth that needs debunking, in case anyone still believes it. Top-quality cardboard can bear considerable weights — some chairs, for example, support up to two quintals. Before purchasing, it is important to ensure that resistance data are declared, in order to have a guarantee of product quality.
"I like to say that Kubedesign makes architecture in cardboard," says Nazareno Mengone, a young entrepreneur with a passion for cardboard furniture. "All our items are made from high-level industrial materials and are entirely comparable to those made from traditional materials, both in terms of strength and durability. Our mission is to create an increasingly emotional cardboard design that can define and give soul to a space." And with cardboard you really can do anything — even build architecture.
As demonstrated by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, winner of the Pritzker Prize in 2014 — the most prestigious international architecture award — for his works built from recycled materials, intended to house refugees fleeing poverty and civil wars, and victims of natural disasters. Shigeru Ban also used cardboard to build the Christchurch Cathedral in New Zealand. A poetic work constructed from thousands of tubes of compressed recycled cardboard, capable of accommodating 700 people and designed to last for more than twenty years. The large front façade incorporates polychrome triangular panes of glass that echo the Gothic stained-glass windows of the pre-existing cathedral destroyed by the earthquake in 2011. Shigeru Ban is also the author of the Paper Concert Hall, a 230-seat concert hall in L'Aquila in 2011, an eco-sustainable building with a steel structure and cladding made from expanded clay sacks covered in pre-compressed cardboard.
A great deal of ground has been covered, then, in recent years compared with the first cardboard product proposals, and the reality of production has overcome clichés, fears and misgivings about the material's performance, its strength, durability, obsolescence and aesthetic quality. Continuously evolving technology and the experimental research carried out by companies in the sector suggest that the future of this ecological material may hold some surprising developments.