Perils of Sitting
Questions surrounding the health impacts of sitting so much – at school, work, even while commuting – have been all abuzz recently. Many people, and offices have started using standing desks, or even treadmill desks in order to get healthier. The Dutch design firm Rietveld Architecture-Art-Affordances (RAAAF) has taken things a step further with their sculptural furniture landscapes.
The follow is the project’s description from the RAAAF website:
The End of Sitting
The End of Sitting is an installation at the crossroads of visual art, architecture, philosophy and empirical science. In our society almost the entirety of our surroundings have been designed for sitting, while evidence from medical research suggests that too much sitting has adverse health effects. RAAAF [Rietveld Architecture-Art Affordances] and visual artist Barbara Visser have developed a concept wherein the chair and desk are no longer unquestionable starting points. Instead, the installation’s various affordances solicit visitors to explore different standing positions in an experimental work landscape. The End of Sitting marks the beginning of an experimental trial phase, exploring the possibilities of radical change for the working environment. This project is a spatial follow-up of the recently released mute animation ‘Sitting Kills’ by RAAAF | Barbara Visser, developed for the Chief Government Architect of the Netherlands.
The End of Sitting is a collaboration with Looiersgracht 60 (Soraya Notoadikusumo and Nadine Snijders), a new space for art and science in Amsterdam.
My Thoughts
This is the type of design that I see as being innovative not because I expect to see it installed in offices around the world, but rather because it challenges the preconceptions we have about our working and living spaces. It pushes the idea of a an office to it’s furthest limits. I think that this is the sort of thing that we can then further build on. It challenges us to think of new ways of doing things, and gives some starting places to work from.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” interval=”3″ images=”1288,1285,1290,1292,1289,1284,1287,1286,1291″ layout=”3″ gallery_style=”1″ onclick=”link_image” custom_links_target=”_self” img_size=”1668×1118″][/vc_column][/vc_row]