Strong, stable, and made from cardboard

October 8, 1998
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Strong, stable, and made from cardboard

EDITORS: Black and white photos available on request.

ANN ARBOR—You have to be able to comfortably sit on it, stand up from it, and find its form somewhat pleasing to the eye. But that was only part of the challenge architecture Prof. Mete Turan presented to his students in a “structures” class at the University of Michigan. Using no glues, staples, strings, treads or any other joining/connecting/pasting material, Turan’s students had to construct a cardboard chair from no more than three corrugated cardboards of 48-by-96 inches each. Prof. Turan uses the chair project as a tool to introduce terms and concepts to his classes with the emphasis on stability, strength and stiffness. “You need to pay attention to the ergonomics of your body,” Turan told his class, “because your chair should be structurally stable and strong enough to carry me and also be ergonomically comfortable to accommodate my sitting in and standing up from it.”

Corrugated cardboard is the material of choice because it is inexpensive and readily available. Its strength is one-directional. It is more apt to bend in the other direction, Turan says. This is in opposition to steel, which is isotropic or strong in both directions.

Turan’s students were also reminded that as in most design problems, the chair they design was to serve a function and that the design and construction/assembly should exhibit an understanding of the structural characteristics of the material or its tectonics.

Whether it’s a chair of cardboard or a skyscraper of various materials, the rule still stands that “a structure is only as strong as its weakest point,” Turan says.


U-M News and Information Services University of Michigan

U-M News and Information ServicesUniversity of Michigan