Democratic Cardboard. Materials and design for a sustainable society

Abstract

In a blend of playful provocation, radical protest and early ecological awareness, cardboard design developed between the 1960s and the 1990s as a frugal alternative to the aesthetics and materials of modernity and post-modernity. In the third millennium this conveys important messages connected to the sustainability of productive processes. In most cases, designing and making cardboard objects means activating short and circular production chains, where the authorship of the project not overpowers the functional and participatory value of the program. Through structural forms, simply made by folding or layering, the ecological advantage of the material, today obtained by recycling waste or from the controlled use of natural resources, is increased by light techniques that are mostly reversible. Thus cardboard becomes a metaphor for sustainability and, thanks to its inherent suitability for educational purposes, is a preferred instrument for raising awareness and activating responsibility with regard to environmental and social issues.