She has 36 more pieces to cut out and assemble before she can call it a night or early morning, and the glue needs to seep in and dry before she can add the next section.

Monday marked the final critique of the third-year interior design studio's cardboard chairs. Studio instructors Kate Saroka and Lindsey Ellsworth-Bahe, an assistant professor of interior design, borrowed the project idea from an American Institute of Architecture Students nationwide design competition last year, which rewarded the most creative design.

The students were instructed to produce a chair to scale in which one would could safely and comfortably sit. Ellsworth-Bahe and Saroka organized the 30 students into pairs of two and asked them to design one of four different types of chairs: lounge, dining, two-person or children's.

"This project was a good basis for the rest of semester," Saroka said. "The chair gets you thinking about human dimension and how we can design a functional environment to fit those proportions."

The chairs were constructed out of discarded cardboard, which challenged the students to create a functional object out of something often thought of as waste.

More and more designers are discovering it's essential to find ways to reuse materials and incorporate environmentally friendly products into their designs. Some students even continued to use their chairs after the project was completed.

"I was surprised that our lounge chair actually ended up pretty comfortable," said Erin Gevik, a junior interior design major. "My classmates suggested that we just leave it between the third- and fourth-year studios at Architecture Hall. We could take turns napping during a long night of work in the studio."

The chairs were graded by faculty and fourth-year students in the College of Architecture. As the professors and students walked from chair to chair, they filled out an evaluation sheet critiquing the level of comfort, aesthetic value and the execution of craft.

The students also produced bound books to accompany the chairs, explaining their evaluation of the human body in the seated position, their design processes and the chair in its intended environment.

The students quickly learned that a little cardboard goes a long way. They glued sheets of cardboard together, ran the "boards" through a table-saw or hand-held jigsaw and ended up with a new designer chair.

"The hardest part wasn't tracing or cutting out the cardboard. It was sanding down the edges so they would all match up," McCormick said. "It really changed the materiality of the cardboard, making it look smooth, and, like, anything but an old TV box."

Ellsworth-Bahe said the project taught students to think outside the box, literally.

"I hope that in the end they realized that beautiful objects aren't always made of the most expensive materials."