Mantis: The Ergonomic Prayer Chair (2025)
Featured in the Design Week’s picks of this years standout degree show projectsAs a designer grounded in diasporic experience and cultural narratives, this project explores how form, faith, and ergonomics can intersect to support the body in sacred space. The ergonomic prayer chair was born from an observation: many elderly and physically limited Muslims face discomfort and even exclusion during prayer due to conventional seating options that do not align with islamic prayer posture and enable comfortabiloity.
This prayer chair is not just a piece of furniture — it is a design intervention rooted in dignity, accessibility, and spiritual continuity. Inspired by Islamic geometry and the rhythm of salah (prayer), the chair’s form follows the logic of both movement and stillness. Through material exploration, user observation, and iterative prototyping, the design bridges contemporary functionality with traditional symbolism.
By creating an ergonomic solution for those with arthritis, aging bodies, or physical impairments, I hope to reframe how assistive design can exist in religious contexts — not as a compromise, but as a form of inclusion and beauty. The Mantis prototype previewed below is a kneeling chair designed specifically for Islamic prayer. It features a tilting seat that supports the spine and knees during prolonged sessions of worship. The lower rest allows for easier transition into the sujood (prostration) position, while the head support mimics the natural gesture of forehead placement. The piece incorporates motifs from Islamic architecture and was developed through a combination of digital design (CAD), 3D printing, and handcrafted assembly (Wood and steel fabrication).