Clockwise from top left: Rien Ne Peut desk by cartonniste Miss Julia; Miss Julia’s 1 2 3 pops with colorful graphics; This Side Up by David Graas; Don’t Spill Your Coffee Table by David Graas.

not to mention providing guests with a good conversational centerpiece for many a red wineless cocktail party to come.

Swiss designer Nicola Enrico Stäubli decided to skip the red wine and cigarettes crowd altogether and focus instead on the grape juice-swilling crowd. Currently, Stäubli’s company Foldschool ( foldschool.com) offers free designs for a stool, a chair, and a rocker, all geared toward children under 8 years old.

Oh, and another thing — Foldschool doesn’t make the furniture for you. Instead, they tell you how to put it together yourself. Stäubli emphasizes that the process of crafting one’s own furniture is an integral part of Foldschool’s concept, and thanks to their downloadable patterns and a few readily available materials, we can whip up our own

cardboardy furnishings in a matter of hours. Not only that, kids (and their crafty parents) can also further decorate the furniture, thus encouraging a multidimensional sense of craftsmanship and creativity.

In the end, whether we buy it or make it ourselves, cardboard furniture is more than just the latest gimmick. In a world of mass consumerism, it makes especially good sense to have furniture that can be produced, and disposed of, with little or no harm to the environment. If you’d like to become a cartonniste yourself, check out the fun tutorial (page 94) on how to build a chair from Foldschool!

Photography by Miss Julia (top row) and David Graas (bottom row)

Anna Dilemna is a doll maker and writer who has lived in New York City, Santiago, and Tokyo. Currently, she lives in Switzerland and eats lots of cheese. annadilemna.typepad.com