Denmark's Next Classics

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This is the last opportunity to see Denmark’s Next Classics at Designmuseum Danmark.

The exhibition shows the work of five designers who took part in a series on Danish television in the Spring that sought to find new designs that could become design classics in the coming years.

From each designer there is a dining chair, a dining table that can be extended, a pendant light, furniture for children, a sofa and a lænestol or arm chair.

With sketches and models for the designs and with audio-visual material - including clips and interviews from the programmes - Denmark’s Next Classics explores the process of design.

The designers are Janus Larsen, Isabel Ahm, Rasmus B Fex, Kasper Thorup and Rikke Frost.

Judges for the competition were Anne-Louise Sommer - professor of design and now director of Designmuseum Danmark - and the designer Kasper Salto.

Denmark’s Next Classics
at Designmuseum Danmark until 1 September 2019

the six programmes can still be viewed
on line through the DR site

 

a new library for Nørrebro

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At the beginning of August a new public library opened in the old tram sheds in Nørrebro.

The building is set back from Nørrebrogade with a large square at the front where trams originally turned into the sheds and the original high and narrow openings towards the road have been retained but with new doors that have stylised versions of giant book cases.

Inside, the single huge space of the shed has been retained with arched openings in the brickwork along the east side towards Bragesgade kept as a strong architectural feature and to flood the space with light. The industrial roof has been kept and is now painted black.

Fittings are in pale plywood and divide up the space and there are integral breaks in the shelving with desk spaces and benches that create quiet places to work but also form views through the space.

Across the west side of the library are smaller spaces on two levels with meeting rooms above for meetings and teaching that the community can use and, like all libraries in the city, there is a play area for children to encourage even the youngest to see the library as a fun place to visit.

Further back from the road is a second huge tram shed and that was converted some years ago to a sports hall - Nørrebrohallen - and there is now a large entrance area and large cafe between the two - between the library and the sports halls - as a place where people can meet.

Running back from the road and along the west side of the buildings is the famous city park - Superkilen - with its outdoor play and sports so this area is now a major hub for the community around. It is anticipated that visitor numbers to the library could soon exceed 1,000 a day.

 

select any image to open the photographs as a slide show

sport and space consultancy KEINGART
have published a pdf file on line with
plans of the library and cafe area

 

Løsninger - KADK Afgangsudstilling Design/Architectur/Konservering

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There are just a few days left to see the exhibition of graduate projects from the schools of architecture, design and fashion at the Royal Academy.

Under the overall title Løsninger, Solutions, there are 235 projects from students who graduated this year.

They look at a huge range of topical design problems from the potential reuse of existing or abandoned buildings, to the development of new materials for construction and for fashion; to the design of shared living to combat loneliness and the possible use of the metro system in Copenhagen to create a new distribution system for goods and there are assessments for marginal lands both for protecting vulnerable landscapes and for building settlements on marginal land as climate change effects existing areas of habitation.

This is an opportunity to see where and how teaching is anticipating future developments in architecture and design and it is fascinating to see how models, drawings and the background research for work are presented.

The fashion projects have already been dismantled - they were moved and shown at another venue through fashion week - but the architecture and the furniture design and the ceramic and glass projects and graduation work on typography and game design can be seen through to the 16 August.

 

Løsninger - KADK Afgangsudstilling Design/Architectur/Konservering

until 16 August 2019 at KADK, Danneskiold-Samsøes Allé 51, 1435 København K

 

KADK graduates and UN Sustainable Development Goals

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Lene Dammand Lund, Rector

Shown in this outdoor exhibition are seventeen innovative study programmes or research projects by graduate students from the Royal Academy Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation and each represent one of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Rigsdagsgården - the courtyard immediately in front of the parliament building in Copenhagen - is an amazing public space that is easily accessible for everyone and has a regular series of open-air exhibitions but, more important, given the subject of this exhibition, it brings these problems - and the urgent need to find potential solutions - right to the doorstep of national politicians.

These are innovative and imaginative projects that show architectural, design-led or conservation solutions to major global problems but all are based on established design principles and the use of existing technology or of technology being developed now.

This is the best of Danish architecture and design that can and should be harnessed to tackle serious problems that have to be resolved now.

Solutions shown here are a response to huge range of serious questions including questions about:

  • how we can reclaim methane gas from melting permafrost as a source of green energy

  • how to use sustainable materials to design textiles and make them a preferred choice

  • how we create healthcare solutions for elderly citizens that involve people and maintain their dignity

  • that developing traditional handicrafts can be a starting point for women to start a local business

  • how novel solutions can ensure that people everywhere have access to clean water

  • design solutions can tackle the problem of over production of food or food waste and encourage people to share food resources to combat hunger

  • the design of lighting in the class room can be used to reduce noise levels and encourage calm and concentration in schools

  • research can find a way to use the waste from fish farms to fuel biogas energy

  • major architectural projects - changing the use of large but now redundant buildings - can reduce inequalities by enabling everyone in a community to participate

  • hemp can be an alternative to cotton because cultivation requires less water and less fertilisers

Each project is shown across two large panels for maximum impact but are repeated - two or more projects to a panel - on the side of the exhibition towards the pavement - where the text is in English.

There are important statements here from Jakob Brandtberg Knudsen, Director of the School of Architecture; Mathilde Aggebo, Director of the Design School; Rikke Bjarnhof, Director of the School of Conservation and Lene Dammand Lund, Rector of KADK. 

 

Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademis Skoler for Arkitektur, Design og Konservering
The Royal Danish Academy Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation

the exhibition of graduate projects from KADK in Rigsdagsgården
 the courtyard in front of the parliament building in Copenhagen
continues until 30 June 2019

 

select any image to open in a slide show

 

DESIGN X CHANGE at Designmuseum Danmark

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DESIGN X CHANGE, at Designmuseum Danmark today, is a major and popular annual event that is part of the Danish Design Festival.

There were demonstrations and displays in Grønnegården - the great courtyard at the centre of the museum - and lectures in the upper hall and all around the theme of sustainability in design.

DESIGN X CHANGE continue at Designmuseum Danmark tomorrow - Sunday 5 May 10.00-17.00

for information about companies and organisations taking part and for details about lectures see DESIGN X CHANGE

 

My Perfect City 2 - The smart city: Seoul

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Last week I posted about an interesting new radio programme on BBC World Service that is looking at which features of our cities now might together make a perfect city for the future.

The second programme was broadcast today and examined how cities use smart data looked specifically at Seoul in South Korea.

Interesting ideas were discussed but the overriding message must surely be that citizens right now should be discussing what data should be collected, how it should be used and who has access to that data.

Passively waiting to see what governments or global companies do and then complaining is not the best approach.

BBC World Service, My Perfect City, episode 2, The smart city: Seoul

for the post here on the first episode see The green city: San Francisco with a link to that programme

SPACE10 redesigned

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Last night was the opening of the redesigned interior of SPACE10 - the Research and Design Lab in the Meat Market district of the city.

They now have a new street-level gallery space and café area - a Test Kitchen that has been developed with Depanneur - and office space on the first floor has been rearranged so the work areas can be reconfigured for an increase from 10 to 30 people now working here.

Spacon & X have designed the area "not to last but to adapt" with a strong steel framework with panels that can be inserted as required, in part to reduce noise, for work pods.

With this project, SPACE10 and Spacon & X have reassessed how people work in flexible common space with the aim to boost "innovation, wellbeing and morale."

 

The opening was also an opportunity to launch SolarVille

 

SPACE10 Redesigned
Spacon & X

books on the Bauhaus at Designmuseum Danmark

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This year, the major exhibition at Designmuseum Danmark is about the history and work of the Bauhaus - the German design school that opened in 1919.

The exhibition opens on the 14th March and will continue through to December but as a foretaste there is a small exhibition in the area to the left of the museum entrance with a display of books and journals from the Bauhaus and some of the many publications about the school that are in the library of the design museum.

Bauhaus #itsalldesign

Store Arne og Lille Arne / Big Arne and Little Arne 2019

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These annual awards from Arkitektforeningen or the Danish Association of Architects began in 2007. Winners receive an acrylic statuette that is printed with the face of Arne Jacobsen and hence the name of the awards.

Winners for works from 2018 were announced in a ceremony at BLOX on 18 January 2019.

Store Arne / Big Arne

winner:

Elefanthuset / Elephant House
architects: LETH & GORI

A brick chapel dating from the 1890s that has been restored and converted into an activity centre for patients with cancer. The building was part of the former hospital and old people's home of De Gamles By.

“The project shows an exemplary balance between humbleness and a personal and distinct architectural vision. Precise interventions all characterised by a refined materiality defines the project, that despite its small scale is able to bring new life to the building. By adding new functional layers the transformation opens up for a new era for the historic chapel building. The project is nominated for a vital transformation of a historic building that revitalises the house as an attentive and caring frame that embraces a vulnerable user group.”

Leth & Gori 

nominated for the award

Noma
architects: BIG + Studio David Thulstrup

Hotel Herman K
architects: Dansk Ejendoms Management A/S (inhouse)

Enfamiliehus på Kålagervej / Family house in Kålagervej
architects: Solveig Dara Draško Arkitektur

Tingbjerg Bibliotek og Kulturhus / Tingsbjerg Library and Culture Centre
architects: COBE

 

Lille Arne / Little Arne

winner:

KADKs kritiske forskning om Københavns udvikling / KADK Critical research on the development of Copenhagen

Atlas of the Copenhagens and Boliger Bebyggelser By / Homes Ensembles City by Peder Dueland Mortensen

- Bolig og velfærd i København / Housing and welfare in Copenhagen

“We are incredibly proud that peers at their own prize, acknowledge research as a key contribution to the architectural profession. We work every day to create the world's best architectural education, and we do so on our unique three-legged knowledge base: the practice of the subject; artistic development and, not least research. Therefore, it really means a great deal to us that with this prize research is appreciated on an equal footing with the other architectural disciplines.”

Katrine Lotz - Head of the Department of Architecture, City and Landscape at KADK - the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation.

KADK

nominated for the award:

Klimaflisen /Climate tiles
architects: Tredje Natur

Principper for cirkulært byggeri /Principles of circular construction
Fællestegnestuen GXN, Lendager and Vandkunsten

Resilient Aesthetics / Resilient Aesthetics
Forskningsindsats v. lektor Nicolai Bo Andersen, KADK

 

There are photographs and brief descriptions of the nominated buildings and work on the site of the Association of Architects.

Arkitektforeningen / the Danish Association of Architects

 
 

Mød Vikingerne / Meet the Vikings

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A redesign of the exhibition space at the National Museum in Copenhagen for the display of their collection of Viking artefacts was opened officially yesterday.

A first small square gallery has an introduction to this new display with images of three warriors and larger than life images of the king Harold Bluetooth and Tova his queen with the reconstruction of a throne. There are important items from the museum collection but displayed along with rubber portrait heads.

In the main gallery beyond, one long wall has further large figures of characters from the Viking period with a merchant, a housewife and so on and with each given a pen portrait or short back story.

My first reaction was that I wasn't sure if I was being introduced to Vikings warriors who were the first competitors from an early version of the Roskilde Festival naked run - but with fancy head gear - or to hipsters who have been living in Vesterbro since 875 AD and to kings and queens who were unbelievably attractive people who had just had a sauna and scrubbed up well before going to the equivalent of a casting session at HBO or Netflix but in the 9th century.

But actually, although I'm being sarcastic, I'm not about to launch into an attack although there has been some heated discussions in the press over the last couple of days about how authentic the costumes are or if some artefacts have been shown together when they are not contemporary and much about where on their bodies Viking men had tattoos … or not.

These costumes and setting for the reconstructions are by the Danish designer and author Jim Lyngvild although the museum has been quick to emphasise that these are based on current academic reassessments although much has to be speculative because, for instance, fragments' of rich silks brought back from the middle east have been recovered from excavations but few garments.

However, on balance, it is a good attempt to make us, the visitor, look again at our view of Viking life and Viking culture and particularly if that view is confined to stories of long ships and warriors wearing horned helmets who headed off on raids to plunder and pillage.

The story here draws attention to trade, culture and governance and looks at just how far Danish traders travelled and just how much was brought home from not just Baltic neighbours but through trade and conquest of Northern England; from settlements in Ireland and then south through areas of France and by the Viking traders travelling through the Mediterranean to trade with the Middle East to bring back valuable goods from as far away as Persia.

But the exhibition is also careful to point out that the vast majority of the population stayed at home with the wealthy taking care of large estates farmed by peasants and servants. The role of women was more nuanced than we might assume for with men away trading or fighting, aristocratic Viking women may have had a large degree of freedom and power. The exhibition also looks at recent ideas on the role of women in these expeditions abroad. Women would have travelled with the fighting ships to form new settlements and although some may consider the idea of shieldmaidens as a myth, some warrior graves have been identified as female graves.

I learnt a lot. For a start Viking men seem to have been fastidious about grooming and in one excavation of grave goods they even found silver ear spoons. I actually looked but IKEA seem to have dropped them from their catalogues sometime since the 10th century.

the new exhibition is at Nationalmuseet, Prinsens Palæ, Vestergade 10, Copenhagen

Nationalmuseet  / National Museum

 

Brooches that were part of a hoard from Hornelund near Varde. The fine filigree work and the form of decoration with vine leaves indicate that they are by Danish goldsmiths and date from the second half of the 10th century. 

Hoard from Terslev in Zealand with silver weighing nearly 7 kg including an astounding 1,751 coins. Buried in second half of the 10th century. A large bowl may have come from Persia showing the huge stretch of Viking maritime trade.

Sword from 800-900 AD found in Søndersø Lake in Northern Jutland. It has elaborate decoration with silver thread and fragments of the scabbard suggest it was not lost in battle but was possibly part of an offering of thanks.

The Sympathy of Things

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Perhaps it seems odd to recommend here a programme on BBC Radio about design when it was not specifically about architecture and design in Denmark but The Sympathy of Things that was first broadcast at the beginning of November raises what seems to me to be incredibly important general points.

The two programmes were presented by Amica Dall and Giles Smith of the architecture collective Assemble and they explored ideas about the designed and manufactured world and considered a wide range of problems about our relationship to the things that surround us everyday from "pavements and handrails to hairdryers and cereal bowls" and, along the way, asked the head of design why IKEA don't make toilets.

In our concerns about sustainability and in our growing uneasiness about global production, we may have reached a point of self doubt that is comparable to the conflict of feelings and soul searching about early factory-produced goods that, in the late 19th century, lead to the formation of the Arts and Crafts movement not only in England but also in Denmark and in other European countries.

We still seem to have an odd or at least an unresolved attitude to the relevant roles played by artists, craftsmen and designers and can be ambivalent about the benefits or not of mass production so now is certainly the time to consider and discuss this as we tackle issues like our use of natural resources, pollution from production and the growing impact of transporting goods from countries that have had low labour costs as the dominant economic model in a profit motivated society.

An important point made in the programme was that "there wouldn't be anything mass produced without the knowledge about how to do it by hand" but the problem is that as more and more is mass produced in remote countries, our skill base and, personally, our direct understanding of materials and how we use them is being lost.

Giles Smith suggested that “Learning to make things and to engage in richer more active relationships with materials can help you locate yourself in the world and witness your reliance on other people's skill and labour.” Is that indulgent … an attitude that is only possible in a wealthy country … or should it be a wakeup call for a World that seems increasingly disconnected?

 

The Sympathy of Things Part 1
The Sympathy of Things Part 2

Assemble

FORSK! - research projects from Aarhus School of Architecture

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This exhibition at the entrance-hall level of the Danish Architecture Centre in Copenhagen is on the work of eight research students and graduates from Aarhus School of Architecture. 

These projects cover a wide range of subjects from understanding natural and historic man-made drainage as it has to adapt or be adapted for increased rainfall - a consequences of climate change - through new possibilities in the way we use traditional materials like concrete and, for wood, how new techniques of digital fabrication can be used to develop new forms of construction. 

 As people move into cities some buildings in rural settlements in Denmark have been abandoned and one of the projects looks at how we assess buildings that are no longer needed and might be demolished and looks at how we understand and remember buildings that are part of a common cultural heritage.

The project by Elizabeth Donovan explores how a strong visual or graphic presentation that shows the complex history of sustainability over a century reveals new connections and suggests hierarchies or priorities when “bridging the gap between discourse and practice.”

“Each project further illustrates a rising need for interdisciplinary dialogue to both develop and build knowledge and hereby influence the world.

Aarhus School of Architecture labels this research by design. This methodology, developed at the school, tests ideas and theories through real-life case studies … a proposed solution to a relevant problem, rather than a theoretical consideration.”

Timber curtain by Niels Martin Larsen and Maya Lahmy
explores how we shape materials - here by using digital control of a router to cut precise joins to construct a complex lattice of curved and twisting sections of timber.

Mass and Manipulation by Jon Krähling Engholt
Concrete is normally flat and relatively smooth but here a rubber membrane that has a pattern of cuts made with a laser is used for the former and is supported in different ways as the concrete sets. The weight of the concrete means that the rubber stretches and as the cuts stretch they distort or twist to reveal a different characteristic of concrete that as it sets changes from a viscous fluid to a solid.

Don’t Blame the water! Katrina Wiberg
In many settlements, particularly if they are low lying or close to the coast, modern expansion is often over marginal land - building on meadows and marshland that had taken or slowed down surface water when rain was heavy. 

Maps can show features of the landscape that have been overlaid by man-made drainage systems over decades or even over centuries.

The study area for this project was the settlement of Lystrup. Historical maps, contemporary maps and flood maps were compared to correlate  historical wetlands with flood-prone residential areas to resolve the actual relationship.

Decisions about climate resilience have to include "the planning processes and decision-making mechanisms that shape urban development."

We claim or reclaim land for new developments to extend urban areas and settle in places that in the past were considered to be either unsuitable or difficult for habitation and studies like this will make it possible to distinguish between the Dry and Wet City because "When the cloudburst occurs, the water takes over, and the ice age landscape emerges. The Wet City awakens."

 

Bespoke Fragments Anders Kruse Aagaard
 … explores concrete wood and steel but uses them in a way that challenges our perception of these traditional materials that normally we barely notice.
Concrete is twisted over curved and almost free form steel reinforcing rods to create shapes that are closer to sculpture than structure and in Intermediate fragments from 2014 ash is cut and curved and twisted using digital machining and then slotted into a complicated concrete base for a striking interplay of materials and forms.

Urban Carpet by Polina Chebotareva
10,000 pieces of Douglas fir were linked together with steel wire, the wood charred to form an unfamiliar surface that protects the surface from moisture using a technique related to the Japanese Shou Sugi Ban. 
When it rains the wood gives off a slight scent of smoke that enhances the experience and with use the colour changes to brown so you can trace where people have walked.

For the festival in Aarhus in 2018 the Urban Carpet was installed on a traffic Island in the middle of the main road in front of the central railway station - an area of 100 square metres. 50,000 people cross over here every day but normally people do not notice the island so it is described as an overlooked urban space. The carpet challenges preconceptions and invites people to experience a familiar route in a new way.

Transformation of the abandoned Mo Michelsen Stochholm Krag
This project looks at the impact as people migrate from the country to the town and buildings are abandoned. It recorded but also intervened in the decay cutting through some buildings that are destined for demolition to reveal new views and a new focus on both the structure and on perceptions about how it was used and its role in the community as it is  lost from a common history.
Biopsies of the abandoned 2015 looked at a farmhouse in Ydby dated 1780 and tracked the decay of a pig shed.
The reverse biopsy 2016 looked at an abandoned confectionary in Hurup  two months before it was demolished. The building was cut through and for the first time that opened a view and link between the shop in the front and the bakery at the back and revealed a stratification and private history to stimulates a reassessment of the place these buildings had in the lives of people … those who lived in them and those who visited them or possibly knew them only from the outside.

 

Practice Futures

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A major exhibition, Practice Futures, has opened at KADK - the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation.

The full title of the exhibition is Technology in Architecture, Practice Future, Building Design for a New Material Age, and this is an import examination of that area, if you see it in terms of a Venn Diagram, where the disciplines or professional expertise of architecture, engineering, techniques of construction and the development and the technology of materials meet and overlap.

Fifteen research projects are presented here from international PhD students working in six major European research departments and working with fourteen established partners including major architectural practices, engineering companies and construction companies.

These ongoing studies are reassessing well-established materials such as timber and concrete and rediscovering or reassessing or developing techniques to shape, bend, finish and join materials to achieve new forms of construction such as large scale, computer-controlled extrusion or printing and the development of new materials for large-scale building projects. 

This is about new tools and new approaches for reassessing traditional materials and established craft techniques but also about using computers to assess complex information; to solve unconventional design problems and to control systems for constructing new forms and new types of building. 

Projects presented here are prototypes to demonstrate customised solutions to realise challenging new construction projects that not only have to take into account the need for high energy conservation but also have to tackle rapidly-developing problems or social pressures from population growth, and, as a direct consequence, find new solutions to the demands of cities that are growing at an unprecedented speed. This is construction design trying to deal with political and economic constraints and with the added and pressing demands of global climate change.

KADK Udstillingen og Festsalen
Danneskiold-Samsøes Allé 51-53
1435 København K

the exhibition continues until 7 December 2018

 

Arkitekturens Dag / Architecture Day 

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Architecture Day this year will be on Monday 1 October with events around Denmark. For the programme and information about times and venues see the site on Arkitekturens Dag by Arkitektforeningen - The Danish Association of Architects.

Arkitekturens Dag - Arkitektforeningen

 

Løsninger - exhibition of work by graduates from the School of Architecture, Design and Conservation

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There are just a few more days to see the work of the 232 architects and designers who graduated this summer from the schools of architecture and design at Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademis Skoler for Arkitektur, Design og Konservering - KADK or the Danish Royal Academy of Architecture, Design and Conservation.

 

the exhibition is open every day to the 19 August 2018
KADK
Udstillingen og Festsalen
Danneskiold-Samsøes Allé 51-53

Sansehaven - garden of the senses

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As you enter Fælled park from Trianglen, just beyond the monument, there is an area of woodland on the right but as you are drawn forward - towards the light and open space of the park ahead - it would be easy to miss the Sensory Garden in the trees.

In dappled light, in glades among beautiful mature trees, the garden was designed by the landscape architect Helle Nebelong and was created in 1996 when Copenhagen was City of Culture.

With wide, gently-curving, gravel paths and low but distinct boundaries it is laid out to be an easy and a safe place for children to explore even if they have sight impairments or have mobility problems or use a wheelchair. 

Plants are chosen for their distinct shapes and there are herbs for their smell or even their taste but the dense but low planting also shields the garden from the more noisy and boisterous park beyond to make the space feel somehow calm and protective. 

The main features are a gravel-filled canal that runs through the centre of the garden with low bridges over it or stepping stones along it, and gives a distinct Japanese look, and there is a large maze with low walls of wooden posts - some with numbers or letters set near the top so you trace 1 to 9 and then track the alphabet as you follow the posts of the undulating palisade.

In the line of the planting around these features there are small, semi-enclosed spaces where children can discover a giant nose carved in smooth marble or a wooden sculpture like a giant chess piece but with a carved fish and lemons on the top or there are wind chimes or a seat under an arch and several larger features including a hexagonal temple with ornate carved posts supporting a tiled roof. 

It's all very beautiful and the garden is a credit to a park and to a city when they can design and maintain a place that is so magical.

Helle Nebelong

 
 

translation of the park sign:

SANSEHAVEN

Sansehaven is a small garden for children and their adults - a corner of Fælledparken with space for exploring surroundings, feeling nature and discovering all the senses.

1 Hearing
2 Seeing

3 Taste
4 Smells

5 Feel
6 Sixth Sense

A sense garden can be a substitute for nature when the real thing is far away or difficult to get to. Sansehaven was originally made for multi-handicapped children and young people who can enjoy small gardens with many impressions and experiences.

For the sake of children who are visually impaired or use a wheelchair, Sansehaven is therefore arranged with wide paths and clear edges of, among other things, cobblestone, which makes it easy to get around.

Sansehaven in Fælledparken is shaped like a maze with winding paths, and if you are curious, you will discover a garden full of surprises.

Enjoy.

Fælledparken

Tårnlegepladsen / tower playground and Spejlhuset / Mirror House at Fælledparken

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Play areas for children in the parks and squares in the city are amazing … with imaginative climbing frames, swings and slides and so on that take a huge range of forms and styles. 

Simply from an architecture view point, probably the best is the play area at the south corner of Fælledparken in Østerbro. As part of extensive improvements to the park in 2011 and 2012, the play area was completely redesigned by GHB Landskabarkitekter with the company PlayAlive. 

There are enclosed courts for ball games and a small skateboard area but the really distinctive feature here is play equipment that is modelled on the old towers and domes and spires of the city … so here you can find a version of the dome of the Marble Church, the Round Tower, the spire of the City Hall and the spire of Boursen, the 17th-century exchange down by the harbour.

It’s a great way to introduce even small children to the idea that good architecture can be fun … so the games can go further as a learning process if children begin to recognise and name buildings as they go around the city.

There was an existing park building here when work on the new play area was initiated - a long low building with a pitched roof for park and play equipment and toilets but it went through an absolutely astounding transformation with design work by the architectural practice MLRP. The long side walls and the roof were clad with heat-treated or smoke-blackened timber planks but it is the end walls that really fascinate children - and come to that adults - as the gables and also some of the doors on their inside faces were covered with polished steel that acts like a distorting mirror. 

Fun and stylish .... this is modern Danish design at its very best.

 

Fælledparken

Another play area in the park - Trafiklegepladsen / Traffic House - was also designed by MLRP as an area laid out with small-scale roads and junctions and road crossings and traffic lights where small children learn to ride their bikes before going out onto busy public roads.

 

 

Løsninger / Solutions 2018

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29 June 2018

This evening was the official opening of the exhibition of the work of the graduates from the schools of architecture and design at Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademis Skoler for Arkitektur, Design og Konservering - KADK or the Danish Royal Academy of Architecture, Design and Conservation

 

The exhibition is open every day through to the 19 August 2018

KADK
Udstillingen og Festsalen
Danneskiold-Samsøes Allé 51-53
1435 København K

 

Swiss Design Zurich Made … Designmuseum Danmark for 3daysofdesign

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This was an event to show the work of the Department of Design from Zurich University of the Arts with an exhibition in the Festhallen of the museum - the big assembly room over the entrance of the museum - and there was a packed series of talks and discussions through the Friday and Saturday.

It was very much about new and emerging talent - the next generation of designers - and covered well-established disciplines such as typography but had a strong focus on design for the computer - virtual models, virtual reality, computer games and apps using GPS to explore a city and its culture - along with political or social aspects of design - so work on how gender is expressed either consciously or unconsciously in the design of products.

Established Swiss design was represented here by the Ulm Stool by Max Bill from 1954; the Stella Chair and the messenger bag from Freitag that reuse truck tarpaulin. With the bags, Freitag had worked with students to explore new concepts and new forms for the bag and for the event, down in the courtyard, there was a stall where you could design your own bag by moving a Perspex template over a tarpaulin to form the design you liked best.

Action! Teaching and Learning for Sustainability has online sites for their symposiums in 2016, 2017 and 2018. These show how design as a training and as a profession has now spread out to involve a much much broader social, environmental and political area.

Forty or fifty years ago to call a store a design shop somehow implied that it was special and, by implication, ordinary furniture was somehow not designed and to have 'designer' anything - from jeans to a vase by a named designer - somehow implied, in terms of marketing at least, that this was special - to justify the price tag - but again, insidiously, as if it marked the buyer out for their taste and discernment. Equally typography was the work of a graphic artist or typographer rather than someone calling themselves generally a designer and people declared themselves to be interior designers before they realised that dropping the word interior gave them more freedom to work over a broader range of products.

Now the word design seems to be too broad. I'm not suggesting that it has been claimed by too many for too many products … just that it has become too vague. Everything, even badly thought out and badly made furniture or household accessories are actually designed … bad products are not organic or spontaneous and don't appear as if by magic in a container at a port. But the Swiss exhibition here shows that really good design, for all aspects of life, can be enhancing and invigorating and crucial to everyone's by making appropriate and sustainable design for the coming decades.

Swiss design Zurich made

Freitag