NEW HAVEN, CT (CNN) -- Furniture that's lightweight, inexpensive and 100 percent recyclable. That's one of the ideas behind a new store in New Haven, Connecticut. It's called chair-a-gami. The other idea is to make it all from cardboard.
Zack Rotholtz says he started playing with cardboard boxes as a kid and he has always been fascinated by the possibilities of the material. So as his senior project at Yale, he decided to design a chair that can also serve as a table or turn into a bookshelf all out of a single sheet of cardboard. He says, "Partly environmental, partly light weight, partly a really cool concept, but a lot of it makes sense from the sustainability aspect."
From a chair the next logical step was to design a bench and then a table and his company Chairigami has taken off from there. Zach says, "I mean I've got an office space I'm doing I do a lot of people's homes. I did a whole room for a college kid."
Zach custom designs and builds each piece to customer's specifications. Big table, small table, whatever you want. Zach says, "Have clients come in, 'hey I need a chaise lounge'...can you make it? Ok why not. let's go back and design it. One person asked me for a yoga bench; more recently a bed."
First question, is it strong? Answer is yes. The industrial strength cardboard can handle 240 pounds per square inch.
Next question, will it last? Zach says, "It'll last a year and a half no problem and that's college kids..that's as long as they need it...you're in and out..right? you're mobile...you're moving around, you're sort of nomadic."
No staples, no glue. Fold it up and off you go. Put a cardboard couch outside a shop in New Haven and it will draw a crowd and comments.
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