Why is Chennai’s Karthic Rathinam building himself a cardboard house. And would you like one too?

Karthic Rathinam and his team at Out of the Box craft DIY furniture, sculptures, and decor with cardboard, showcasing its potential for temporary housing, event installations, and more

When Karthic Rathinam — then a third-year product design student in Pune — moved out of his hostel into an unfurnished studio apartment, he decided to build his own furniture. “I experimented with wood, and steel, but with little money left after spending on basic living expenses, I couldn’t afford to build things with those materials,” he says, adding how cardboard boxes that held his belongings took his fancy. “That’s when it hit me. Why not try building with cardboard? I built a bed, table, chair, and shelves out of cardboard and ended up using them for six months.” 

This got Karthic studying cardboard’s structure, limitations, and possibilities. In 2021, Karthic designed a cardboard-based sanitizer stand that went viral on WhatsApp. “I sold over 80,000 units initially that were deployed at Metro stations in Delhi,” says the designer, who went on to set up his firm, Out of the Box, the same year. 

Now based in Chennai, Karthic began with eight products including a table, table lamp, stool, laptop stand, tabletop desk organiser, shelving options. Today, the 26-year-old and his team have branched into packaging and sculptures. They also conduct workshops in design colleges and schools.

He explains how they use high-strength corrugated cardboard sourced from specific partners. “It’s not the same cardboard that you will find in your regular parcel boxes,” he clarifies, “It’s triple-layered, very strong corrugated boards. Our furniture is designed to be lightweight yet structurally strong, and entirely adhesive-free. All pieces are DIY and use the interlocking technique. Imagine IKEA, but for cardboard,” says Karthic, adding how the material’s versatile nature makes it ideal for temporary installations such as movie sets, exhibition stalls, etc. 

Their stool, for instance, can hold a weight of 300 kilograms. “How do we know this? We made six people stand atop it,” he shares. With in-depth research, the team has managed to eliminate odour, improve aesthetic with colour printing, and make the products water- and oil-resistant. “It’s not waterproof, but definitely water-resistant. Also, we are not claiming it will last you a lifetime, It will last you for a good two years, and maybe more if maintained better,” affirms Karthic. “The products are fully recyclable. You can give them to your paper mart vendors. Even if you decide to trash them, cardboard finds a way back to you in another format.”

Over the last three years, these cardboard offerings have taken the fancy of not just students and designers, but corporate clients as well. “We’ve had clients for the sanitiser stands from South Africa, Dubai and London. One of the biggest highlights was when a South African client licensed our design to distribute across 54 countries. Since cardboard has the capability to get branded or printed, we can custom products too,” says Karthic, whose Anna Nagar office has been using cardboard furniture for the last two years. “Even Startup TN [a State government initiative] has a small corner with cardboard furniture which people use on a day-to-day basis,” says the designer who has also designed life-size sculptures for events such as Madras Art Weekend and Echoes of the Earth. 

Addressing challenges faced in maintaining sustainability while scaling up, Karthic says that the biggest was logistics. “At one point, shipping cost more than production. Also, while our material is sustainable, ensuring quality, strength, and water resistance at scale needs intense R&D. The lack of strong design protection laws in India has also made it difficult to prevent copycats, which hurts original creators,” he explains.