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In This Vision of a Healthier Workplace, Sitting Is Not Allowed Dutch visual artist Barbara Visser is taking an edgy stand against the dangers of sitting at work all day.

By Kim Lachance Shandrow

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

RAAF (Rietveld Architecture-Art-Affordances)

Newsflash: Sitting is the new smoking. Today, the typical office worker sits at a desk for 7.5 lethargic hours a day, dramatically increasing the risk of obesity, heart disease, colon cancer, Type 2 Diabetes and depressingly more.

Humans aren't designed for this much sitting around and it's become painfully obvious, thus the recent rise of standing desks and even this ridiculous human-sized hamster wheel.

Related: What's Really Killing You (and It Isn't Ebola)

Clearly, sitting for hours on end is killing us and that's not something we should, well, take sitting down. Dutch visual artist Barbara Visser isn't. She's literally taking a stand against the dangers of sitting at work.

In an edgy new exhibit at Amsterdam's Looiersgracht 60 Gallery, somewhat fittingly titled "The End of Sitting," Visser and her cohorts at RAAAF (Rietveld Architecture-Art Affordances) envision a more active, upright office environment. Well, mostly.

Their futuristic interior design/modern art hybrid visualizes the death of cubicle-itis and the birth of "an experimental work landscape." It's a crammed, maze-like simulated office expanse that's reminiscent of a skateboarding park and completely void of those classic enablers of poor circulation and poor posture -- desks and chairs.

Related: 5 Reasons to Get Off Your Butt at Work

In their place are an array of bulky, angular light-gray slabs of what might be concrete. We hope they're made of something softer and more comfy. Not too comfy, though. After all, Visser created the unfortunately drab slabs to encourage exhibit visitors to experiment with various working positions, ideally standing. Oddly, though, some are pictured -- gasp! -- lying down on the job, a cardinal sin even we pajama pants-clad telecommuters wouldn't be caught dead doing. Others are even, go figure, sitting.

To see Visser's slouchy yet promising vision for the future office, stand up and watch the mute concept animation below:

Related: 8 Tips for Staying Healthy in an Open Office

Kim Lachance Shandrow

Former West Coast Editor

Kim Lachance Shandrow is the former West Coast editor at Entrepreneur.com. Previously, she was a commerce columnist at Los Angeles CityBeat, a news producer at MSNBC and KNBC in Los Angeles and a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times. She has also written for Government Technology magazine, LA Yoga magazine, the Lowell Sun newspaper, HealthCentral.com, PsychCentral.com and the former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Coop. Follow her on Twitter at @Lashandrow. You can also follow her on Facebook here

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