Designer Ian Gonsher, a recent graduate of the MFA program in furniture design at RISD, offers a refreshing proposal for repurposing cardboard packaging with his origami-like Box Table.
A concept for encouraging the reuse of cardboard boxes, the Box Table is assembled from a pre-printed box with only a few simple cuts and folds. Gonsher writes, “By creating an incentive for reusability, there are obvious ecological benefits as well as greater product desirability with little extra cost.” It’s like the grown up’s version of the forts my brother and I would build out of a cast-off appliance boxes when we were kids.
It also seems that this approach would be perfect for shipping/moving boxes. Imagine a suite of cartons ready to fashion into different furnishings? Dispatch your wares cross-country and after unpacking you could furnish your home at one fell swoop! Or, at least have somewhere to rest your coffee mug until you invest in something a little more permanent…
It should be noted that Ian Gonsher was previously recognized by ID Magazine’s Student Design Review for his clever collapsible fruit bowl made from a single piece of laser-cut wood.
We can’t wait to see what else Ian comes up with — or for these pieces to go into production. (Sadly, all appear to still be in prototype.)
Via Core 77
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This is really great. Anytime packaging is designed for re-use I am happy and really congratulate your efforts.
It’s so cool!!! Do you have any more??
um, well, its cool that you add links about the artist/designer adn his school but what about the most important link? where can we get one?
Now there needs to be a template for converting all boxes of a certain size into such tables
congratulations, this is a really good idea:)
Interesting idea, but the guy obviously never packaged or received a box that had to go through a shipping carrier.
There’s so much tape, label and pouches on the box on arrival that it would be nearly impossible to build the table.
So, 10 points for the idea, but minus several millions for the real-life testing.