From corner office to kitchen sink, building site to factory floor, and cubicle to car to coffee shop, work shapes our lives and physical world. Whether it is producing objects, generating ideas, managing processes, or performing services, work is a hybrid of dedication and alienation, power and oppression. Yet machines are changing the way we think about work. Many jobs are becoming obsolete, and workplace boundaries are shifting.

The “No Sweat” issue of Harvard Design magazine challenges designers to speculate on the spaces of work in an accelerated future, and to imagine a world in which a novel ethics of labour can emerge. More than 40 contributions address the multitudinous concept of work.

From corner office to kitchen sink, building site to factory floor, and cubicle to car to coffee shop, work shapes our lives and physical world. Whether it is producing objects, generating ideas, managing processes, or performing services, work is a hybrid of dedication and alienation, power and oppression. Yet machines are changing the way we think about work. Many jobs are becoming obsolete, and workplace boundaries are shifting.

The “No Sweat” issue of Harvard Design magazine challenges designers to speculate on the spaces of work in an accelerated future, and to imagine a world in which a novel ethics of labour can emerge. More than 40 contributions address the multitudinous concept of work.