Did you even know there’s such a thing as cardboard furniture? Not boxes repurposed into storage modules but actual furniture pieces made of cardboard. It may sound strange but such furniture pieces can be very useful in certain situations and in a lot of different ways. You can think of it as temporary furniture for students’ dorm rooms, rented spaces or for those periods prior to renovations of spaces. Some designs are so complex and well thought-through that you can even include them in your permanent home. So there it is, cardboard furniture and some of its uses.How, where and when would you use any of the following products?

Despite being made of cardboard, these square modules are very strong and durable and they can be used to store a lot of things from books to decorations, files and pretty much anything else you’d normally put on a shelf or in a bookcase. They can be combined into units and they come in sets of four. {found on pappmoebelshop}

The Brix shelves are quite similar in the sense that they’re storage modules made of cardboard. They’re rectangular in shape and they have interlocking edges with allows them to be safely stacked and organized into bigger units. They’re made of high-strength cardboard and can support more than 40 pounds of weight.

Flexibility is important in the offices of today and Refold is a project that proposes an interesting idea in this sense. It’s a standing desk that of cardboard. It can be easily installed and then disassembled and it’s the type of desk that can adapt to pretty much any work environment, allowing the user to interact and collaborate with others in a comfortable and professional manner.

Cardboard chairs also exist. One example is Kraftwerk, a chair made of 4 mm cardboard. It’s designed by Tom de Vrieze and it’s surprisingly strong and durable. It has a sleek and sculptural form and it’s filled with polyurethane expansion form which increases its durability.

Since cardboard is such an affordable and accessible material, you could even use it to build something yourself. For example, you could make your own cardboard chair. All you’ll need is some sheets of heavy duty cardboard and a box cutter. You can make your own paper templates, cut out the pieces and then simply assemble them. There’s a detailed tutorial showing you how to do it on Instructables.

Designer Liam Hopkins has created two amazing furniture pieces that look impressive. More impressive than the look is the fact that they’re made entirely of cardboard. The Bravais armchair and the Radiolarian sofa and both part of a collection that uses corrugated cardboard and forms inspired from nature. The designs are optimized to take advantage of the structural properties of the material.

Using cardboard to make furniture is an eco-friendly idea, especially if the furniture is made of recycled cardboard. You can find inspiration in Re-ply, a design by Dan Goldstein which repurposes clean used cardboard boxes into chairs. The material is shaped using a molding technique and the end result is a strong and comfortable shell which is attached to a thin metal frame.

If you’re creative enough, you can come up with all sorts of ingenious ways to turn cardboard into furniture. For example, have a look at the Continual Chair, an amazing piece of furniture designed by David Lee. It’s basically a grid of 123 cardboard tubes which can be pushed down to shape the seat, armrests and everything else. The possibilities are endless and the process is pretty fun as well.

Cardboard is also great for storage but not in the sense of using boxes to keep stuff in. We’re talking about shelving units like the Coop which are made entirely of cardboard. They’re recyclable and, in addition to that, the shelves are adjustable. You can position them at various heights to compartmentalize the unit as desired.

There are those moments, when you haven’t started to renovate yet but you still need a place to store your clothes or when you don’t want to invest in a big wardrobe and yet you’re tired of throwing your clothes on the chair. That’s what Hanging Out is for. It’s simple, made of cardboard and designed to keep your clothes nice and organized. You can even add this to your existing setup.

We know plants can help purify the air and we’re grateful for that but what if a plant were made of cardboard? Would it still purify the air? Actually, yes, as long as we’re talking about these innovative air filters designed by Nextmade. They’re made of corrugated cardboard and they look like potted cacti. They have filters and fans inside which break down the bacteria and dust. They come in various different shapes and sizes.

Inspired by the iconic S-shaped chair, Amanda is a modern replica of its design, made of cardboard. It has a sinuous and elegant form and it’s exceptionally versatile, being able to adapt to a variety of environments and settings, including work areas and lounge spaces. The chair was designed by Matteo Baroni and Sara Casati.

A chair shaped like a hand…and on top of that made of cardboard. Now that’s what we call a statement piece. Designed by Antonio Pascale, this chair is one of the most interesting focal points of attention you could choose for a living room but also for a variety of other spaces including cozy lounge corners in bedrooms, reading nooks, makeup vanity seats, etc.

This is Bruce, an armchair with lots of personality. It looks heavy and robust but it’s actually very lightweight because, well, it’s made of cardboard. It’s the type of chair you can use in the dining room but also as an addition to a living room. It’s pretty comfortable and versatile so it can adapt to a variety of different decors. It even comes in a variety of colors and color combinations.

It’s difficult to define Jack as a specific type of furniture when it can serve as so many different things. It can be a side table, a magazine rack or a stylish little accent pieces for lots of spaces. It’s made of cardboard and it has a cute cube-like form with four tiny wooden feet and a small divider.

As it turns out, cardboard is a very versatile material and furniture made of cardboard is very strong and durable as well as very customizable. Take this armchair for example. Clorinda looks very similar to an armchair made of wood and with thickupholstery except it’s not but that doesn’t stop it from being just as comfortable.

What better way to store your wine bottle collection than in a rack that looks like a giant wine bottle? It sounds like a lot of fun and it is. The Minibodega rack is made of cardboard and can hold up to 12 bottles. It’s a wonderfully cheerful accent piece for modern and contemporary decors.

Would you furnish your living room with a cardboard coffee table? If the table looked like the one designed by David Rasmussen, maybe that wouldn’t sound like such a crazy and unusual idea. This table has a simple, elegant and modern design, with clean lines and stylish features.

Somehow it seems right to store your books on shelves made of cardboard. Of course we’re not talking about improvised structures but about an actual bookshelf with a stylish and elegant design. It’s called Damaris and it’s pretty versatile and modular. You can stack two or three of these modules to create custom units.

Kids grow fast and in a way it makes sense for their furniture to grow with them or at least to be replaced from time to time to suit their needs. Things like chairs, storage modules, shelves and tables made of cardboard won’t last for very long but that’s ok because then you can replace them with bigger versions. {found on rafa-kids}.

The Chick’n’Egg Chair is another piece of furniture created for kids, although it proved to be to so stylish that it’s been adapted to be used by everyone. It looks so beautiful, with its sculptural waffle-like grid and egg-inspired form that it’s a real shame to even sit on it. The chair is very lightweight being made of corrugated cardboard so it can be easily moved around.

Speaking of sculptural and eye-catching chairs, feast your eyes on this version of the iconicWiggle side chair. It’s part of the Easy Edges furniture series which looks simple but definitely not boring. It has this understated sophistication which elevates cardboard to a whole new level.

A bed that can be assembled in minutes, doesn’t cost much and is strong and durable sounds pretty amazing. It’s also as real as it can be. ThePaperpedic Bed is made of cardboard, an unlikely material for such structure. Surprisingly, it’s a wonderful fit and incredibly strong. The bed can hold over 2 tonnes of weight. Not too bad for something made out of cardboard.

A very beautiful thing about cardboard furniture is the fact that it’s eco-friendly as well as recyclable. These characteristics are emphasized by architect Giorgio Caporaso in the series called stylish furniture made of cardboard in combination with various other materials including wood, stone and even lichens.

The Urban Tree is a coat hanger made of…you guessed it…cardboard. It’s a piece designed by Gerardo Belmonte. It has 6 legs and 5 rings and it’s cut from layers of corrugated cardboard. It’s very sturdy and easy to assemble, with no need for tools or adhesive.

When there’s not a lot of room for all the furniture pieces and accessories that you’d like to have in your home, the solution is simple: multifunctional designs. There’s even a cardboard version of that and it’s called Loop. It can be a chair, a bar stool, a coffee table, a bookshelf or a lounge chair, depending on what you need at the moment.

If you’re familiar with those cardboard poster tubes then you know how strong and durable they are. Anything build out of them would have the same characteristics. In fact, FanTubes is exactly that: a collection of furniture pieces consisting of tables and chairs, all made of cardboard tubes of various heights.

Cats love cardboard. They like to hide in boxes and to play with them so, naturally, someone thought to take advantage of that. That’s how this cardboard cat cocoon came to be. It’s a cute little hideaway for cats with an exterior that can be used as a scratching post. It looks really cute and it’s fun for the cats too.

The Cellulose Meeting Pod is designed for offices and it’s a sort of impromptu structure which can be used as a private meeting space or just a place where you can be alone for a while. It’s made of cardboard so it’s lightweight enough to be relocated with ease and at the same time strong and durable enough to last for a long time. It’s a pretty great idea, especially for large and open work environments.

When you have a baby it can be pretty uncomfortable and tricky to go on family vacations or anything like that because there’s so much you need to cary with you. Thanks to the Paper Tiger series, you have one less thing to worry about. This is a collection of temporary furniture made out of cardboard. It can be packed flat for easy storage and transport and it’s easy to assemble, durable and recyclable, not to mention lightweight.

Lamps can be made of cardboard too. It’s an idea that inspired Vicara to create Cartonado, a lovely little table lamp that can be packed flat for easy storage. It has a simple, classic design and it looks quite cozy and cute. You can get this as a temporary light fixture for an office, a rented space or simply if you like the idea and the design.

If you liked the idea of a cardboard light fixture, here are a few more designs, this time from Graypants. We’re talking about the Scrap Lights series, a collection of pendant lamps and chandeliers made out of repurposed cardboard boxes. They’re very stylish and they give out a warm and very pleasant light.