There is nothing that screams “frugal startup” more than cardboard furniture. Aza Raskin, the founder of Songza and Humanized who was recently hired by Mozilla, designed his own system of cardboard building blocks that can be assembled into desks, wall dividers, and cubicles for his own Chicago offices. It is based on an art project that his father Jef Raskin, of Mac interface fame, once did. Today, he is turning the side project into a business and launching it as Bloxes. What are they exactly? He explains:
They are called Bloxes — essentially 3D cardboard legos that ship flat, and fold up in modular building blocks that are strong enough to stand on. While they aren’t tech per se, we use them for building tables, walls, cubicles, and desks. Both Google and Mozilla have expressed interest in using them in their offices. So, this may well be the new thing in terms of agile office-space deployment. Don’t like where a wall is? Just move it! Don’t like the way it looks? Just rebuild it! They are cheaper than cubicles, and much more fun.
It’s interface design applied to cardboard. (TC readers get a 10 percent discount until March 12 with this coupon code: TCBLXAR). See more pictures here and below:
This has got to be one of the dumbest ideas I’ve come across. There’s a reason why things are made in China. Labor is CHEAPER over there.
Unless you get your janitor to assemble this, the cost in terms of dollar/labour to build this trumps just going online to order a table from Staples, or driving to Walmart and buying a chinese made folding table or wall divider.
Agree
I checked out the page, no info, no contact and everything they made of of them is ugly as sin.
Easier way to make walls: Hire a couple of student contractors, have them build some walls, give em a case of beer and you’re in business.
As for furniture, there’s still *plenty* of Aeron chairs and Curved glass desks left over from dot-bomb 1.0….
How does this make TechCrunch and yet you wouldnt even put something like VCWear on here? Maybe Arrington is right, he should start a new blog thats actually about startups
Being British the first phrase which springs to mind is
‘what a load of bloxes’
OK, there’s a certain cool factor, like giant cardboard lego bricks, but it looks like it’s a lot of work to assemble so if you want to pay people to assemble stuff then that’s fine.
But it is made of cardboard, and I have to question how flammable a wall made of cardboard with lots of air voids in it would be. I imagine this stuff might be as popular with the fire department as songza is with the music business (and audiophiles).
Here is his photo gallery
Commenters are so boring though I like Everett’s site.
Add some colors and this could be a great toy.
You make fun of it but this dude is going to be richer than all of us combined with this “dumb” idea.
We have a “bloxes” wall at yahoo’s brickhouse office in SF (or at least I think its the same thing). Anyway its very cool: http://flickr.c...her/2110962071/
I’m guessing if you spill coffee on the coffee table … it will suffer eventual structural failure, due to the ‘liquid is bad for cardboard’ factor.
Might be a time killer for interns. Can’t imagine regular staffers being assigned a box-builder project. Goolglers, due to their inherant love for Lego, might be an exception. And they get that 20 percent ‘free time’ thing. Maybe they’ll build a blox ladder to space.
I can see a use for these – at trade shows, for example. But before I order a case, I need to know how big they actually are! And…where do I get the coupon code their shopping cart wants?
$60 for a pack of 20 blocks seems a little steep as well. That will build a “4-by-5 blox wall of approximately 36 inches by 45 inches.” So to build desks, walls, and furniture for an entire office I need quite a few boxes of bloxes. For $60, I can buy a whole lot of cheap tables.
Is it flammable? I think the college crowd is a great target for this….
What a waste…of time and resources.
So, when the mailman delivers the Bloxes package to your office, how do you know what to keep and what to throw away?
Something that’s peculiar to the bay area is the ratio of rent to value of furniture.
Only in Palo Alto where you pay $4 per square foot PER MONTH (no not per year, per month) would you furnish it with ikea a $14 end table. Strange.
#5 #13
Houses in US are already flammable, bloxes can make it a bit quicker (efficiency you know!)
But the idea looks cool & trendy which makes it workable in US
(especially looking at the way people like to decorate thier cudes)
anyway, how is that related to Web/Web 2.0?
Nice story for a change (I still think techcrunch is a Web 2.0 blog).
@9 — very cool and seems it is much better solution than bloxes
I don’t think you guys get the point. It’s not about creating cheaper office furniture – it’s about having fun.
Engineers are the kind of people who grew up on legos, constructs, and tinker toys. This is like the next generation in that line – except for adults, and with the benefit of being useful to everyday life.
I love it. I just ordered two cases for Mint.com – people need to take breaks when they work 14 hours a day, and this is the perfect creative, constructive way to do that.
I’m impressed Aza!
Aaron Patzer
Founder & CEO, Mint.com
@ Aaron: 19.
“Engineers are the kind of people who grew up on legos, constructs, and tinker toys. This is like the next generation in that line – except for adults, and with the benefit of being useful to everyday life.”
Cool adult toys perhaps… but useful to everyday life?? Did you drink from the same koolaid that the Segway guys handed out?
@13, 17 nailed it. I look at this and think *serious* fire hazard.
Ever seen cardboard burn? Yeah… Now take that same cardboard and put nice, oxygen filled spaces everywhere in between so it burns explosively! People trapped in this won’t need to worry about burial costs, they’ll be cremated right on the spot.
I can’t imagine what sort of idiot would put this stuff in a home or work place.
Every article/post I have read on this, he has been linked to his father.
Just a comment.
Most of you guys are over-thinking this. It is just a fun side-project. And it is about design.
Some high-end furniture and prototypes are actually made out of cardboard. Frank Gehry’s famous cardboard Wiggle chair comes to mind, and that costs $875.
http://www.plus...Chair-18-0.html
http://en.wikip...board_furniture
What I think you could do with this is make some of your own, by getting the pattern and tracing it on to cardboard and cutting it out. The sixty dollar price seems a little bit steep, especially for some pre-cut cardboard. It would be easier just to make your own (if you had a template.)
Umm well go ahead and get us that template saebjorn…..
We’ll wait.
@9 and 18: http://www.ilov...il.aspx?ID=1081
I really should wait until the tone of this thread turns and you all think this is cool, but I just wanted to say that I know someone, who is married to someone who is friends with these guys, who know the BLOXES dudes.
Also, this concept is way better than their first idea BRIXES which weighed 5 pounds each and were too expensive to ship.
I actually conceived ZABOXES long ago and had this huge architectural stack of them -kinda like the leaning tower of Pisa, but my girl visitors complained my apartment stunk like old pizza.
well, to build a standard medium size divider wall you’re probably looking at 300 bucks in bloxes – or double that for a set of divider walls – not a ridiculous cost when you consider herman miller or steelcase cube offices that run into the thousands and are boring as shit – BUT bloxes has got to figure out how to build modular shelving components or something like that – these are sturdy, but i want shelves or protusions of some kind to put crap on for an office environment…
As a kid’s toy it is fantastic, but expensive. 4 packs builds four 3′ x 4′ walls. Subtract for windows and a door, and you get a 4 x 4 x 4 structure that a kid can stand in. Add another 4 packs and you can slap on a pitched roof and a cool entrance and exit tunnel.
I reckon 8 packs, or $480, is the threshold for anything interesting.
What’s cool about this is that the bloxes are indestructible. The kid can build stuff s/he can climb in, on, and over, and nothing is going to break.