A container—anonymous, light-grey, satin gloss—stands firm on the Dutch polder. It took groups of international scientists, engineers, and philosophers more than four centuries to build. The container is an alchemy of steel, climate control, artificial lighting, and a highly regulated system for the distribution of water and nutrients. Tomato plants grow inside.
Work, Body, Leisure by Marina Otero Verzier, Nick Axel explores the spatial configurations, living conditions, and notions of the human body engendered by disruptive changes in labor, its ethos, and its conditions.00The Netherlands has been and continues to be a testing ground where the future of labor is reimagined. Published in conjunction with the Dutch Pavilion at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, 'Work, Body, Leisure' analyzes spatial arrangements and protocols molded for the interaction between humans and machines, spaces that challenge traditional distinctions between work and leisure, the ways in which evolving notions of labor have categorized and defined bodies, and the legal, cultural, and technical infrastructures that enable their exploitation, with the aim of fostering new forms of creativity and responsibility within the architectural field in response to emerging technologies of automation.