Wood is too expensive - use cardboard

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smorgasbord

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Fun video from Matthias Wandel:



Notes:
End grain isn't a thing
He uses a dial indicator to check build quality, then switches to tablesaw from a knife for cutting
Veneers the outside with nicer cardboard, adding strength, too.
New kind of miter-fold for corners.
OK, he does add wood trim for the front edges.
I guess it's a really a DIY Ikea design, as the top comment indicates, lol.
Last line of the video is a crackup!
 
The thought had occurred to me. I had seen other videos along the same line.
Not something for damp or wet locations.
The idea has a whiff of Ikea to it. But who am I to judge?
 
About 40 years ago, my mom bought an over-the-toilet storage cabinet from Home Depot similar to what is pictured below:

1763413096892.jpg
In order to compete (or maximize profit) they used the cheapest materials available. The side and back panels were wood grain printed directly onto cardboard. The sliding front doors were 3/16” hardboard with wood-grained contact paper.

The X bracing for the back were painted wire (the cardboard apparently would not stand up the the stresses of keeping the unit straight).

I said “Ma, I’m bringing this back to Home Depot. I am not going to assemble this crap.”

Some manufacturers will take a decent product, reduce the quality of the components until it is no longer functional.

While it is entirely possible to make a piece of functional furniture from corrugated cardboard, that was not a prime example.

The Gehry Wiggle Chair (in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art) is a prime example.

Note: I tried linking the actual image, but the file was too big for this site.



But at nearly $1,500.00 not nearly the bargain you might expect.

store.moma.org

Vitra Gehry Wiggle Side Chair

When he found a pile of scrap cardboard outside his office one day, Frank Gehry decided to experiment by laminating and shaping it with a hand saw and a pocket knife. The result: This sinuous side chair, part of Gehry’s Easy Edges line and a design included in MoMA’s collection. Reinforced by...
store.moma.org store.moma.org
 
Packard said:
About 40 years ago, my mom bought an over-the-toilet storage cabinet from Home Depot similar to what is pictured below:

View attachment 379386
In order to compete (or maximize profit) they used the cheapest materials available. The side and back panels were wood grain printed directly onto cardboard. The sliding front doors were 3/16” hardboard with wood-grained contact paper.

The X bracing for the back were painted wire (the cardboard apparently would not stand up the the stresses of keeping the unit straight).

I said “Ma, I’m bringing this back to Home Depot. I am not going to assemble this crap.”

Some manufacturers will take a decent product, reduce the quality of the components until it is no longer functional.

While it is entirely possible to make a piece of functional furniture from corrugated cardboard, that was not a prime example.

The Gehry Wiggle Chair (in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art) is a prime example.

Note: I tried linking the actual image, but the file was too big for this site.



But at nearly $1,500.00 not nearly the bargain you might expect.

store.moma.org

Vitra Gehry Wiggle Side Chair

When he found a pile of scrap cardboard outside his office one day, Frank Gehry decided to experiment by laminating and shaping it with a hand saw and a pocket knife. The result: This sinuous side chair, part of Gehry’s Easy Edges line and a design included in MoMA’s collection. Reinforced by...
store.moma.org store.moma.org
Click to expand...
Frank Gehry! LOL
I wonder if he is a direct descendant of PT Barnum, who supposedly said, "There's a sucker born every minute."
 
Ages ago, back in college, a couple of friends built a chair and a table out of laminated cardboard, using similar methodology as the Gehry chair referenced above. The result was very sturdy, the chair was quite comfortable. But they were heavy and the shaping wasn't as easy as one might guess, given that it's "only" paper.

As a one-off it's not an easy method, charging 1500 USD for a sculpted chair would not be unreasonable, and a better value than a lot of what's on the market based on some recent shopping my wife and I were doing.
 
Duckler said:
Frank Gehry! LOL
I wonder if he is a direct descendant of PT Barnum, who supposedly said, "There's a sucker born every minute."
Click to expand...
Frank Gehry is a well-known architect, most famous for his design of the Guggenheim Museum in Spain. The architecture is sometimes described as “memorable” rather than beautiful. I would call it “interesting” personally.

The selection of sculptures I also find “interesting”.
1763432321253.jpg


1763432374994.jpg

1763432513658.jpg
 
@Packard It's certainly different, not as iconic looking as the Sydney Opera House in my view, but I like it.

If you want to see real art though, check out "Yellow Peril Melbourne".

We grew up with this incredibly thoughtfully designed artwork that was the pinnacle of sculpture in the 80's, and it was described by at least one person as "a masterpiece of modern sculpture"! ;-)
 
#fan of the Bilbao Guggenheim AND the Sydney opera house 😁👍

Richard Hammond covered both of them in his Engineering Connections TV show. Well worth checking out if you haven’t seen the series. Fascinating to get an insight into what problems had to be overcome to bring those visions to a reality.

The wandel YT video blew me away - the man blows my mind 😁 I posted a comment that I want to be him when I grow up. The problem is I am already twice his age 🤪😂😂
 
Gehry is not what I consider an artist. From what I have gathered he is more of a salesman of his visions.
I know that one needs confidence in order to get hired. But I think Gehry’s creations are very “what’s the point?” and “someone sure went all out spending big bucks to impress”.
Okay. That IMO
 
I.M. Pei designed the original Newhouse School of Communications building at Syracuse University in the early 1960s. He used cutting edge technology to construct the building, which was made entirely of poured on site concrete.

What they had not mastered at that time was the porosity of the concrete. In the rain, the walls used to “bleed” white (plaster??).

And once, while I was taking photographs in the photo studio, a large chunk of the ceiling fell and struck me on my head. I ended up going to the hospital for stitches and a mild concussion.

My parents wanted to sue the University, but our lawyer said, “If you want Packard to eventually get his diploma, I would recommend against that.”

(The university had a list of rules to govern student behavior, but “Rule 1” made all the rest just guidance. Rule 1 said [verbatim from memory, but very close to accurate], “The University can expel any student for any reason and is not obligated to state what that reason is.”

In any case, I graduated 2 years later with a degree in Photo Journalism (B.S.), but with no big payout for the large block of plaster that fell on my head, and the Newhouse building no longer resembles the original shown below.



Original:
1763479580607.jpg

Updated version:
1763479689839.jpg
 
Last edited:
Duckler said:
The old building is still there according to your second picture?
Click to expand...
Yeah, it appears to be attached. It seems to be sitting on that large plaza that the steps lead up do. That plaza was a total waste of space, to a logical use of the square footage.

I have not revisited Syracuse since it had been added. As additions go, it looks nice, and happily not trying to match the original.
 
smorgasbord said:
I thought the second photo might have been AI: People in Syracuse with short sleeves and no jacket?
;)
Click to expand...
Through one particularly harsh period of weather, the temperature never got above 20 below zero for 10 days. When the cold spell snapped, it suddenly “warmed up” to 40 degrees above zero, a 60 degree rise in temperature. The equivalent of going from a “cold” 20 degrees to a “hot” 80 degrees.

In any case, almost everyone on campus was walking around in tee-shirts and (if they had them with them) shorts. The body adjusts.

But even without that absurd weather pattern, the spring would bring some 70 degree days and the early days of classes would also. So not surprising.

What is also not surprising, is that the photographer waited for a comfortable day to spend outdoors taking the pictures.
 
One of the Ikea Besta units we bought had cardboard honey comb as the internal structure of shelves. You would only know that by cutting it apart. I wanted to have a shallower shelf, so that we could have the back row of DVDs a few inches higher than the front row.

You can knock it, but the material was plenty strong for that application and Ikea does a really good job of value engineering. We couldn't have initially furnished our house without it; or at least not nearly as nicely.

My take is that if you don't disassemble and move it, the stuff will last a very long time; but for a lot of it you have a limited number of disassemble/reassemble cycles when moving (or in some cases just moving even w/o the disassembly).
 
cpw said:
One of the Ikea Besta units we bought had cardboard honey comb as the internal structure of shelves. You would only know that by cutting it apart. I wanted to have a shallower shelf, so that we could have the back row of DVDs a few inches higher than the front row.

You can knock it, but the material was plenty strong for that application and Ikea does a really good job of value engineering. We couldn't have initially furnished our house without it; or at least not nearly as nicely.
Click to expand...
That's exactly how internal doors are made, and despite what you'd think, they pretty well last forever when not abused!
 
cpw said:
One of the Ikea Besta units we bought had cardboard honey comb as the internal structure of shelves. You would only know that by cutting it apart. I wanted to have a shallower shelf, so that we could have the back row of DVDs a few inches higher than the front row.

You can knock it, but the material was plenty strong for that application and Ikea does a really good job of value engineering. We couldn't have initially furnished our house without it; or at least not nearly as nicely.

My take is that if you don't disassemble and move it, the stuff will last a very long time; but for a lot of it you have a limited number of disassemble/reassemble cycles when moving (or in some cases just moving even w/o the disassembly).
Click to expand...
I did a few Ikea assemblies for our kid's bedrooms 10-15 years ago. Definitely if left alone and not put in a van will hold up well enough.
Also found a dab of glue here and there plus a well placed screw seemed to really help the strength.
 
Ikea furniture serves a purpose or role. I wouldn't consider it to be heirloom quality but it does make efficient use of materials. I much prefer their designs of the 1990's vs today's Scandinavian Rustic/Farmhouse. My wife and I used to make an annual pilgrimage to the nearest Ikea (100 miles each way) and always came home with something, usually lighting. Last year I purchased some bookcases for the upstairs and was thrilled to see that the delivered and for an extra $50 would even take the stuff upstairs. I gladly paid that and tipped the delivery guys!
 
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