Modular Cardboard Shelves

Moving to a new house recently, I have a lot of cardboard packaging boxes around the place waiting to be disposed of. Rather than throwing them away I decided to help mother nature a bit by recycling the cardboard into a shelf.

I’m a fan of modular furniture. It’s unique, versatile and space efficient. I’ve made a post on Modular Honeycomb Shelves previously. This time around instead of hexagon units, let’s go back to basic shape – cubic. The inspiration comes from Stri-Cube by French designer Dany Gilles; which you can check out here. Quote from the website, "Stri-Cube is a storage module made of corrugated cardboard". It uses interlocking system to assemble the shelves which makes it easy for repacking and transport. You can also stack it together like Lego blocks.

This project is my version of the Stri-Cube; I implement simpler way to assemble the shelves, and use less number of parts.

Step 1: Gather Your Materials & Tools

Material:

• Double Wall Corrugated Cardboard (as shown in picture above) - the thickness is about 7mm.

Tools:

• Marker Pen/Pencil, Ruler - to measure and mark the lines.
• Cutter/Scissor.
• PVA Glue.

The attached template is based on 7mm thick cardboard. If you have different size of cardboard just remember to adjust the measurement accordingly.

Step 2: Cut the Cardboard

Measure the cardboard according to the dimension given.

There are 5 parts label as A, B, C, D and E. The total parts needed for 1 unit of cubic shelf are:

2 x part A

2 x part B

2 x part C

4 x part D

4 x part E

Total number of pieces: 14.

Step 3: Assemble the Shelf

Follow the steps in the picture or animation gif above to build the shelf. Connect together Parts B,C,D & E by joining the interlocking slots. Glue Part A to the front and back of the shelf as shown in the picture.

P.S: - You might not be able to view the animation gif from mobile app.

Step 4: Build Some More

Build few more shelves and have fun stacking it together and place your items on it!