Pippi: challenging sedentary work norms through reimagining furniture
Pippi aimed to challenge sedentary behaviours of working, questioning the norms of the 9-5 working life and how design can work on a holistic level of making from wood waste and handcraft. Based locally, collaborations were forged with specialists in seating ergonomics, industrial design and physiotherapy. Further co-creation was facilitated through a workshop with university students, culminating in the cultural prop known as Pippi.
The now traditional nine-to-five “40-hour work week” (Summers 1987) was established by Henry Ford in 1926 and has been adopted as the status quo since 1946 in Europe and America. As we know today, his principles of efficiency and productivity for manufacturing have further extended the same sentiments to people, and because of this, our modern-day society has been built around work. This has been further exacerbated with the recent infiltration of AI. It’s no wonder why people are feeling burnt out. We are simply working more than ever.
Due to modern advancements in technology many people are now able to commute to work via public transport or car. This encourages the act of sitting, then coming to the office to sit more at a desk, sitting at a meeting and even sitting for a break. The whole office environment became conducive to sitting – “existing workplace norms [serve] as barriers to more activity” (Lisa-Marie Larisch et al. 2023) with layouts, furniture and culture prompting work efficiency and sedentary behaviours. Movement and physical exercise then become the responsibility of the individual within their free time, even though a “1/3 of our lives will be spent at work” (Naber 2023). So why not look into the furniture that we use for work? And find in which ways we can facilitate movement -instead of sitting behaviours.
It is interesting that as children we get exposed to environments that have movements innately built into them, for example, a playground in a school. However, as we grow older social expectations change. We are taught to sit still at school and do the work, often ignoring the psychological need for movement. A children’s playground becomes the adult gym, fun turns to seriousness and play turns into strategic action with the sole goal of practicing health. Professor Brown is a psychiatrist and pioneer in play research that suggests play diminishes due to “nonsense and silliness [that] come naturally to kids, but they get pounded out by norms that demean “frivolity” (Brown 2009).
This meant that it was important to set interventions for a younger audience, to begin to instil these healthy working habits of working during these critical developmental times. It was decided to place the context within the home, as after some study visits to two local offices, it was evident that remote working was preferred. This further lent itself to Pippi’s initial concept: something personal, to reflect a homely environment, a much more personal tone rather than the formal setting of an office. It gave room for playful movements that may not have been so acceptable within the public office space.
Hence the workshop of codesign was held by me for university students due to the rise in lectures being held on zoom and submissions being digitalised, it can be compared to relatively similar environments as office workers working from home.
Meta design was used as the framework for Pippi. It helped with thinking on multiple levels of the product, to how it acts within the system and how it then created a cultural paradigm shift. It centres a focus on “what is to what if” (Tham et al. 2019) thinking, reframing problems to expand to many opportunities. It was important for me to not just think about the social impact of Pippi, but also how to approach the design process itself with sustainability too.
Pippi encompasses the playful spirit of Pippi Långstrump, a beloved childhood character known to many Swedes. Pippi serves as a template for responsible making from who is considered as part of the process, where materials are sourced, how life cycles are incorporated into a product and what social sustainability it can facilitate through its inherent nature of playful movement.
References
Arlington Research. Man Sitting in Front of Table . June 11, 2019. Image . Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/man-sitting-in-front-of-table-Kz8nHVg_tGI.
Brown, Stuart L, and Christopher C Vaughan. Play : How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. New York: Avery, 2009.
Eliason, Kenny . Man and Woman Sitting on Chairs . October 27, 2017. Image. Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/man-and-woman-sitting-on-chairs-zFSo6bnZJTw.
Gettysburg College. “One Third of Your Life Is Spent at Work,” 2021. https://www.gettysburg.edu/news/stories?id=79db7b34-630c-4f49-ad32-4ab9ea48e72b.
Lisa-Marie Larisch, Lena Kallings, Britta Thedin Jakobsson, and Victoria Blom. “‘It Depends on the Boss’ – a Qualitative Study of Multi-Level Interventions Aiming at Office Workers’ Movement Behaviour and Mental Health.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being 18, no. 1 (September 20, 2023). https://doi.org/10.1080/17482631.2023.2258564.
Summers, Lawrence H. “Did Henry Ford Pay Efficiency Wages?” Journal of Labor Economics 5, no. 4, Part 2 (October 1987): S57–86. https://doi.org/10.1086/298165.
Tham, Mathilda, Åsa Ståhl, and Sara Hyltén-Cavallius. Oikology – Home Ecologics a Book about Building and Home Making for Permaculture and for Making Our Home Together on Earth. Växjö: Linnaeus University Press, 2019.
