From lighting to furniture, sculptures, room dividers, children’s toys, and everywhere in-between – designers are turning to cardboard to create great green decor and sustainable design. Most are using recycled cardboard or repurposed cardboard boxes to create modern sustainable furniture and accessories. The Milan Furniture Fair and ICFF both featured many incredible cardboard designs.

There is nothing more that we love at The Surface Blog than great sustainable design! The cardboard craze started back when one of societies most relevant architects Frank Gehry designed a cardboard furniture collection in 1972 for Vitra. The cardboard Wiggle Chair and Wiggle Ottoman are made from 60 intricate layers of cardboard. He was way ahead of the trend of sustainable design with this collection. The Wiggle chair is surprisingly sturdy and hugely popular. It is now available in new colors with modern accented lacquered edges.

Cardboard design is so popular that retailer West Elm recently collaborated with top tier event designer David Stark to create cardboard designed furniture and accessories for their latest Manhattan store opening. The limited edition products were made from left over store catalogs and waste from packaging material.

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