The End of Sitting: How middle-aged employees use and experience a new activity-inducing office over time

Abstract

Rietveld-Architecture-Art-Affordances acknowledged the public health concern of sitting too much and developed The End of Sitting—a workspace without chairs that provides a variety of supported standing positions. In the current study middle-aged office workers were to use the End of Sitting for one hour per week over a ten-week period. Over time, participants reduced their changes between locations in one session while working, yet they still worked in different locations and postures at the final work sessions. In addition, we found that the self-reported office task performance (concentration, quality of work, productivity), mood (energized, well-being, pleasantness) and postural comfort were not negatively affected by working in this new office environment compared to their conventional workplace. This indicates that the End of Sitting should be taken seriously as an alternative office for regular office workers.