The End of Sitting – Projects

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 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.

This physical thinking model materializes a philosophical worldview and makes it tangible: a diagonal landscape of affordances scaffolds a more active lifestyle by inviting continuous shifts in bodily posture throughout the day.

Teams of specialised craftspeople are actively involved in the making of our artworks. For The End of Sitting these include Landstra & de Vries supported by Schaart Adventures and Koen van Oort.

The End of Sitting is a collaboration with Looiersgracht 60 (Soraya Notoadikusumo and Nadine Snijders), a new space for art and science in Amsterdam.

External information:
>>> The End of Sitting Cut-out bij de Chicago Architecture Biennial (PDF)

Data
Clients: RAAAF | Looiersgracht 60
Client vision Sitting Kills: Atelier Rijksbouwmeester
Vision: RAAAF | Barbara Visser
Ontwerp installatie: RAAAF
Team: Ronald Rietveld, Erik Rietveld, Arna Mackic
Execution: Landstra & de Vries ondersteund door Schaart Adventures
Photography: Jan Kempenaers (color), Frederica Rijkenberg (black and white)
Animation: Olivier Campagne, ArtefactoryLab
Location: Looiersgracht 60, Amsterdam
Status: Gerealiseerd, 2014

Made posible by: Mondriaan Fonds, Stichting DOEN, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Looiersgracht 60, Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO)

Special thanks to: Koos Schaart, Koen van Oort, Clemens Karlhuber, Bastiaan Bervoets, Elke van Waalwijk van Doorn, David Habets, Mees van Rijckevorsel, Marius Gottlieb, Janno Martens, Team uitvoering: Bouwko Landstra, Alko de Vries, Basile Mareé, Boris de Beijer, Chris Bakker, Dino Ruisen, Ellik Bargai, Frits Ham, Hans Jansen, Jasper van Heyningen, Jolanda Lanslots, Kier Spronk, Lika Kortmann, Lucas van Santvoort, Luuc Sonke, Mark Jooren, Patrick Mulder, Syb Sybesma, Tim Mathijsen en Tomm Velthuis

Quotes from reviews The End of Sitting

— Wired USA
“The Weirdest Proposal Yet for the Office of the Future. RAAAF turned in blueprints for “The End of Sitting,” a glacier-like series of boulders and surfaces that would replace traditional office furniture. The maze-like series of angled and tapered frames create an infinite number of leaning spots, for workers of any height.”

— Financial Times “Much contemporary workspace is the result of lazy thinking and is making us ill… RAAAF recently proposed a radical, conceptual alternative.”

— The Huffington Post
“In The Office Of The Future, You Will NEVER Sit Down. We all know that sitting at a desk all day can kill. So what if we just banned chairs at work altogether? The experiment took things a step further by actually hosting real workers over several days. The professionals performed a variety of tasks, including designing, writing and sketching.”

— Science Alert
Welcome to the office of the future. Are plain old standing desks about to become a thing of the past… already?

— Medical Daily
“Office Space Reimagined: ‘The End Of Sitting’ Art Installation Offers an Alternative. Maybe we’ll never see — or live to see — workspaces reimagined in theway ‘The End of Sitting’ shows, but the premise is striking.”

— FOCUS.de
"Radikaler Entwurf. Ohne Tische und Stühle: Sieht so das Büro der Zukunft aus?"

— O Globo - Brazil

Um escritório onde a regra é não trabalhar sentadoNo espaço, não há mesas nem cadeiras, mas rampas e plataformas onde as pessoas podem se recostar ou trabalhar em pé

— Harvard Design Magazine

"From studies on affordances in dynamic systems theory we know that offering a large variety of affordances can help create an environment that invites roaming withina certain area."

— Metropolis Magazine NYC

"The studio presented a 40-foot “cutout” of The End of Sitting at this year’s Chicago Architecture Biennial, and is working on yet another revelation, this time underground.... In the end, the genius of RAAAF is in its strategic interventions that, though small, invite viewers to imagine a completely different way of living."

— NRC Handelsblad
“Dit is je nieuwe kantoor”

— De Morgen
“De klassieke kantoorstoel is een monster. RAAAF ontwikkelt met ‘The End of Sitting’ een werkruimte die je dwingt om je benen te strekken.”

— De Groene Amsterdammer
Een kantoorlandschap dat beweging uitlokt. Zien we daar de toekomst van ons werk verbeeld? Dat zou heel goed kunnen. De omgeving waarin veel mensen werken verandert ingrijpend. We staan nog maar aan het begin van een radicale verandering.

— Vrij Nederland
"Nooit meer zitten. The End of Sitting moet juist het zitgedrag van de Nederlandse kantoorklerk aan de kaak stellen. Hoognodig."

— Volkskrant
"Het einde van het zitten is aangebroken, vanaf nu hangen we op kantoor"

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