Remember when email was invented and everyone said we'd all stop using paper at work?

Yeah, that didn't really happen - a 2008 Leger Marketing Poll found that Canadians are printing out an average of 30 pages of documents a day, and then throwing away about four out of every ten pages.

But maybe all that wasted paper wouldn't be so bad if you could build offices out of it.

That's the idea behind this temporary office space in Essen, Germany. It's called The Paper House, and it was designed by Berlin-based architects Dratz & Dratz.

The structure is built out of 550 bales of compressed, recycled paper sourced from area supermarkets. Dratz & Dratz got the idea almost by accident.

"Rather unexpectedly, we passed by a recycling station and saw these bales of used paper," Daniel Dratz told Inhabitat.

"We were fascinated by the structural variety and by the fragments of compressed information - like traces of society," he says. "Later we discovered that these bales could be layered and stacked to form monolithic walls, and we recognized the potential for architectural projects."

One obvious question when confronted with a building made of paper: what if it rains?

Well, apparently the compressed paper is very good keeping out moisture - it can withstand several days of rain and then dry in the sun.

This project is temporary, but the architects are hoping to continue with their experiments and possibly build permanent structures out of paper in the future.

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