2,000 Boxes. Three Days. One House That Keeps Changing: Corrugated Packaging Becomes Art in Paris

SHELTER opens today at the MAIF Social Club: a participatory installation in which visitors build an ephemeral house from 2,000 interlocking cardboard boxes, with DS Smith supporting the project.

“SHELTER turns 2,000 cardboard boxes into a temporary collective structure in Paris, open to visitors from September 4–6, 2026.”

There is no finished house to admire when SHELTER opens today in Paris. The visitors are the builders.

For three days, visitors of all ages can take part in a structure that changes as people add to what is already there, rethink it, get things wrong, start again and leave something new for the next person to continue.

Corps Public’s own “rule of the game” sounds less like assembly instructions than an invitation to play: “Build without thinking … fail with joy … start again … inhabit the house … invite friends.”

That one line explains the spirit of SHELTER better than any technical description.

The installation runs from September 4–6 at the MAIF Social Club in the Marais, as part of the venue’s 10th anniversary celebrations and Les Traversées du Marais 2026. DS Smith is supporting the project; the artistic concept comes from Corps Public / Ramona Poenaru & Collaborations.

The artwork is not the house. It is what people do to it.

SHELTER is imagined as a common house: open, without interior doors, partitions or cupboards, with the space organising itself organically around the people who occupy it.

The idea draws on Henry David Thoreau and his questions about shelter, simplicity and how much structure people actually need around them.

But this is not philosophy behind glass.

A child can add a box. An adult can connect another section. Someone can follow what is already there; someone else can change direction completely. Every intervention alters the shape that the next visitor inherits.

That is why SHELTER sits somewhere between installation, workshop, game and performance. The work is never quite finished because the public is part of the making.

Why corrugated packaging people should look twice

A box normally has a very clear job: protect a product, survive handling, stack efficiently and move through a supply chain.

Here, the box becomes the thing people came to see.

For corrugated-board producers, the attraction is in the material logic. Standardised geometry, low weight, stiffness, stackability, a large printable surface and easy handling are normally discussed as packaging advantages. In SHELTER, those same qualities make collective construction possible.

Instead of hiding the box around a product, the project makes the box itself visible.

That is also why this is more than a one-off sponsor activation. Corps Public has worked with cardboard construction for years. In the wider Cabanes project, boxes of one size recur as a basic building material alongside performance, video and sound.

The industrial object stays recognisable, but its purpose changes completely.

DS Smith is part of the story — not the whole story

DS Smith is the sponsor of the Paris edition and has been promoting the event through its own channels. The company describes SHELTER as an inclusive, collaborative space built from interlocking cardboard boxes.

In its announcement, DS Smith put the emphasis on participation rather than packaging technology: “We look forward to seeing this cabin come to life through each encounter and contribution.”

But SHELTER is not a product demonstration. The project was conceived by Corps Public / Ramona Poenaru & Collaborations and is co-produced with the MAIF Social Club. The boxes are the medium; the visitors determine what happens to them.

That distinction matters. The most interesting thing here is not who supplied the material, but what happens when an everyday industrial object is handed over to many ordinary decisions.

“Inside SHELTER, repeated cardboard modules become walls, surfaces and architectural form — showing corrugated board in a completely different role.”

Three days of building, music and performance

The construction starts today, Friday September 4, from 16:30 to 20:00. At 18:30, the building site also becomes a stage for a drag show by Les Paillettes.

On Saturday, visitors can build from 10:00 to 19:00. Cellist Clara Germont performs at 11:00, and Florence Desnouveaux and Violaine Robert bring storytelling into the space at 18:00.

On Sunday, construction continues from 10:00 to 18:00. Actors from the Jeune Théâtre National perform readings at 12:30, the anniversary celebrations include cake, and drummer Xavier Fassion closes SHELTER at 17:00.

The unusual part is that the art programme does not happen beside the cardboard structure. It happens inside the evolving construction while people are still changing it.

Why this matters to the corrugated industry

Corrugated board is usually judged by numbers: compression strength, grammage, waste, speed, print quality, cost per box.

SHELTER offers a completely different kind of demonstration.

People learn what the material can do simply by handling it. They lift it, place it, connect it, build upward and discover how repeated boxes create volume and space.

For producers and designers, that is a reminder that the box has a visual and structural identity of its own. Packaging geometry can create rhythm. Repetition can create architecture. A material engineered for logistics can also become a tool for play, education, exhibition design and public art.

And because the public is doing the building, the material stops being invisible.

No sustainability slogan is required to make that point. For three days, paper-based packaging is not background infrastructure around another product. It is the experience itself.

Where and when

SHELTER – Une cabane pour un anniversaire

MAIF Social Club

37 rue de Turenne, Paris

Friday, September 4: 16:30–20:00

Saturday, September 5: 10:00–19:00

Sunday, September 6: 10:00–18:00

Admission is free and the event is open to all ages.

The installation forms part of the 10th anniversary of the MAIF Social Club and Les Traversées du Marais 2026, whose theme is dialogue.

“Visitors become part of the artwork itself, handling, moving and rebuilding the cardboard structure throughout the three-day event.”

A box gets three days as the main character

By Sunday, no two visitors will have seen quite the same SHELTER.

Some will have added one box. Others may stay long enough to help shape a wall or a corner. Some will simply watch the structure change around the music, readings and performances.

For people who work with corrugated board every day, that may be the most enjoyable part of the story: a material usually noticed for only a few seconds when a parcel arrives gets an entire weekend as the main character.

And anyone in Paris can walk in and add the next piece.