Cardboard tube design. French pavilion at the COP25 Climate Summit in Madrid.

Credits

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The COP25The 2019 edition of the Climate Summit has involved a great organizational effort. First it was the Brazilian president’s refusal to hold it in his country, then the impossibility of holding it in Chile due to the conflict situation they are experiencing. Finally, the offer of some countries to take over the organization and the decision of the UN to hold it in Madrid. A happy ending, a priori, but change of plans and shortened deadlines when it comes to developing the necessary structure for an event of this magnitude to take place. In this context, Cartonlab has developed a stand for the Climate Summit that has stood out both for its design and production as well as for the working method used, based on the global character of our sector.

A structural challenge with cardboard tubes

Inspired by previous works such as the Hermes Pavilion by Shigueru Ban Architects, The challenge for such a stand at the Climate Summit was to make it very stable, even though the greatest distance was 3m. The design proposed a structure built with cardboard tubes, which consisted of several columns and a truss (network of linear pieces) at the top that ran around the perimeter of the stand’s corridor. The joints were resolved with some cross-shaped pieces in the form of cardboard knots (quadruple corrugated) that were inserted into the tubes. The pieces were bolted together to ensure stability and good structural behaviour.

Tubes of various lengths were used, all with a diameter of 8 cm, more than enough to guarantee the desired stability. The tallest columns were 2.5 m and were made up of 6 tubes, up to 9 in the case of the corner column. In order to have the double function of securing the structure and serving as a shelf, hollow-core cardboard trays were introduced from above, which were located thanks to stops similar to those used in carpentry.

The truss was placed on this tubular truss, divided into several sections forming a box that was lifted by hand in modules. At the base, on the platform, some wooden stops were screwed on which the tubes could be placed. In several of the holes generated by the structure, closed cardboard cubes with informative graphics and wooden trays with plants were inserted. This is not the first time we have used the cardboard tubes to create structures, precedents such as those of the support created for Lugupell are a good example.

The warehouse, built in wood, was l ined with pipes on the outside. Inside were shelves, buckets and even a donkey hanging, all made of cardboard. In the rest of the stand we also found wooden furniture lined with tubes, such as the bar, as well as cubic stools, two high tables and a meeting table made entirely of cardboard. On the stools we placed some printed fabric cushions, the same material with which the upper frame was finished off by interlacing it with the structure.

The back was also made of cardboard, including the ubiquitous decorative cubes with printed information integrated into them, as well as a large screen. Above it was placed a honeycomb sign, composed of letters covered with artificial grass.

The overall design of the cardboard, the local production

The project began to take shape from France. Décorama, a leading company in the design of events and stands, proposed the space that its country would occupy at COP 25 in Chile. The proposed design was to be produced and adapted to cardboard by Chileans Latinarq, and Newgraph, dedicated to sustainable construction and design. When the change of venue for the summit took place, with the infrastructure complications that this has generated, and as a sign of their global vision of the sector, they contacted Cartonlab. And that is how we ended up structuring, producing and setting up the stand for the Climate Summit representing France in this edition.

Décorama is a subsidiary of GLEvents, specialists in organising this type of major international event and responsible for managing the IFEMA venues for COP 25. We also worked with them to integrate the pavilion dedicated to France into the overall structure of the event in record time. We have already accumulated some experience in this type of global interaction projects, such as the The Russian position we had to take for IUCN held in Honolulu.

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