Dine by Design’s Cardboard Cathedral

An innovative dining room by Avondale Construction and Ekistics Planning & Design

Rather than focus on the walls, Bourque and his team of 15 volunteers looked to the ceiling. They cut, painted, and assembled 674 cardboard tubes to build the elaborate, pipe organ-like structure. “We needed 86 different lengths to make the ceiling the showpiece,” Bourque says.

He chose orientated strand board (OBS) for the floor, “another discarded material you’d normally cover with wood flooring.” Even the artwork celebrated the creative potential of lowly components. NSCAD grad Andrew Maize used OBS for his painting on the back wall. “It’s a weaker material, but he brought it into the forefront and made it art,” says Bourque.

Supplier List
Cardboard tubes: Crown Fibre Tube Inc.
Mirrored veneer: Formica Corporation and Robert Bury & Company
Vinyl graphic: Skyline Atlantic, Atlantic Digital
Furnishings and fixtures: Attica
Artwork: Andrew Maize
Hard labour: Ken Sutherland and Jason Fitzsimmons (Avondale Construction), Chris Crawford and Julien Boudreau (Ekistics Planning and Design)