Choreographing space: restoring human movement in workplace typologies

The mechanics of the human body are becoming increasingly static. In the past, our economic milieu relied on human energy, but in today’s workplace, we are predominantly inactive. We have engineered human activity out of our physical environments and created a dependence on mechanisms to move us. Consequently, these rapid changes in the environments we inhabit have resulted in a rapid increase in chronic diseases due to inactivity. Growing evidence suggests that today’s chronic illnesses are a product of our modern lifestyle, and our lifestyle is a product of the spatial environments we inhabit. With this in mind, our spatial environment can be the cause and the solution to our sedentary modern condition - by radicalizing its shape it can re-shape the lives of its inhabitants. This thesis examines how human movement can be choreographed into the spatial design of the contemporary workplace environment in order to facilitate healthy lifestyles and sustainable future societies.