One of the assignments that I had in art and design school was to construct a chair using corrugated cardboard as my material. The chair had to be 100 percent cardboard, and it had to hold up to 300 pounds of weight. The reason you could do this is because of the structure of the corrugated materials, which is surprisingly strong compared to it’s weight. The same principal applies to designer Benjamin Hubert’s Ripple table.
Ripple is 80 percent lighter than a standard timber table. It uses 70 to 80 percent less material than a standard timber table. Ripple is approximately 8.2 by 3.2 feet in size, yet weighs less than 20 pounds. This size to weight ratio is achieved by constructing the table with bent 3 ply 0.8mm birch aircraft plywood. The top surface is corrugated plywood overlaid by a flat sheet, and the A-frame legs are a sandwich construction of two corrugated plywood layers. This construction process allows it to be extremely thin, and light yet very strong. It also creates a visually light, airy table with a minimalist aesthetic. Ripple is manufactured by Corelam and available here.
Modular 4 