"Zag" Podium

“Zag” Podium

Illinois School of Architecture, Champaign, Illinois

A speaker's podium as a psychologically expressive furniture type has been only marginally explored: The act of public speaking is a charged experience – exhilarating for some, nerve-racking for others. Couldn’t a podium be interesting without being flamboyant? A friendly companion, as you become the center of attention?

The result of this design inquiry is the Zag podium. The initial formal inspiration is derived from architect Garrit Reitveld’s 1934 ”Zig Zag Chair.” His chair’s continuous solid elm wood structure is transformed into twin sheets of 20 gauge perforated stainless steel folded and spot welded to an interstitial profile layer to create a durable but lightweight structure. The result is a podium with a lively approach to geometry, space, and light.

The inherent moiré effect caused by light playing with the overlapping patterns creates a veiled nuanced object: interesting, informal, sometimes immaterial.

Zag is a prototype made possible as a result of a gift from the Class of 1976 Alumni of the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.