Course Information

About this course

Using Copenhagen as a laboratory, solve realistic problems using analytical and design methods specifically devised for urban design and landscape issues. Some sections in studio focus on issues of human scale, temporary use, and sustainable design. Studio groups combine students of different levels and background. This course is taught vertically, and expectations relate to you as an individual student.

Syllabus

Spring 2026

This is the most recent syllabus for this course

Go to syllabus

Pre-requisites

Enrollment in a professional school or department of architecture or design. Two spatial design studios at university level.

Additional portfolio work required

Examples of studio work in a portfolio must be submitted to your studio instructor at the beginning of the semester. This will allow your instructor to become acquainted with your design skills and better tailor their teaching.

Faculty

Rasmus Frisk

Architect MAA/Urban Design Master (Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen 2003). Extensive national/international experience with large-scale masterplans, building design and public space projects. Worked in leading positions at many firms including White Architects and Gehl Architects. Today, Partner at arki_lab, consulting on global urban design projects. With DIS since 2011.

Jeanette Frisk

Architect, M.A.A. (Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen, 2005). Currently, partner at arki_lab, designing cities with people and consulting on global urban design projects. Extensive national and international experience working with most disciplines in architecture, building design, small and large scale urban development, urban strategies, design, research, exhibitions, and much more. Worked at top architecture firms, including White Architects, on high profile projects and architectural competitions. With DIS since 2012.

Long Study Tour

About this tour

This week-long Study Tour to Germany and the Netherlands forms an integral part of the studio curriculum by exposing you to high-quality architecture and landscape architecture in northern Europe. You will see significant buildings and urban spaces both in the countryside and cities centers alike. Particular emphasis is placed on innovations in spatial organization, constructive, and material expression in public buildings, museums, etc.

The sites visited, as sensory architectural experiences, provide you with an opportunity to develop your critical observation skills, as well as your diagrammatic and representational proficiency. Simultaneously, you are equipped with a vocabulary of design concepts, strategies, and materials, which can be applied in your own creative work in studio and beyond.

Learning outcomes

  • Understand aspects of the design culture in Northern Europe where the manipulation of light, material, spatial proportion, and sequence, and integration of landscape and architecture play a fundamental role

  • Develop sketching and note-taking skills for recording impressions of sites in a visual journal
  • Study contemporary and modernist Dutch and German building and landscape architecture

Possible activities

  • Experience examples of adaptive reuse on both building and neighborhood scale

  • Explore different patterns of urban development in Hamburg and AmsterdamVisit iconic contemporary and historical sites alike, by prominent architects such as Rem Koolhaas/OMA, Herzog & de Meuron, MVRDV and Gerrit Rietveld.

Germany and/or Netherlands

About this tour

This week-long Study Tour to Finland and/or Sweden forms an integral part of the studio curriculum by exposing you to high-quality historic and modern architecture, as well as urbanism in Scandinavia. You will see city spaces and significant buildings in cities like Stockholm, Helsinki, and Turku, as well as architectural patterns of inhabitation in the more natural settings of central Finland. Particular emphasis is given to innovations in spatial organization, constructive and material expression, and the treatment of daylight in public buildings, museums, libraries, and funerary chapels.

The sites visited, as sensory architectural experiences, provide an opportunity to develop your critical observation skills and diagrammatic and representational proficiency. Simultaneously, you will be equipped with a vocabulary of design concepts, strategies, and materials, which can be applied in your own creative work in studio and beyond.

Learning outcomes

  • Study contemporary and historic Scandinavian architecture and landscape architecture

  • Understand how Scandinavian design culture shapes human experience through the manipulation of light, material, spatial proportion and sequence, and integration of landscape and architecture

  • Develop sketching and note-taking skills for recording impressions of sites in a journal

Possible activities

  • Visit early and late works by Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz like Sankt Markus Church, Stockholm’s main library, and the buildings and landscape of the Woodland Cemetery UNESCO World Heritage site outside of Stockholm

  • Explore different patterns of urban development in Stockholm and Helsinki
  • See sites from old and new Finnish architects, from Alvar Aalto and Pekka Pitkänen to Anttinen Oiva and Verstas

helsinki finland
Denmark

Short Study Tour

About this tour

Core Course Week, including this short Study Tour to western Denmark, forms an integral part of your studio curriculum by exposing you to high-quality historic and modern architecture, as well as urbanism. Not only will you discover the qualities that make a building or site quintessentially ‘Danish,’ you will also experience Danish culture from traditional cuisine, art, and concerts. You will make studies of significant religious architecture, housing prototypes, innovative museum designs, and the integration of buildings into landscapes or urban fabrics.

These sites, as sensory architectural experiences, provide you the opportunity to develop your critical observation skills and diagrammatic and representational proficiency. Simultaneously, you will be equipped with a vocabulary of design concepts, strategies, and materials, which you can apply in your own creative work in studio and beyond.

Learning outcomes

  • Study contemporary and traditional Danish architecture and landscape architecture

  • Gain an understanding of Danish history, geography, and culture outside the Copenhagen region
  • Develop sketching and note-taking skills for recording impressions of sites in a journal

Possible activities

  • Compare different spaces for art, including Trapholt, Koldinghus, and ARoS, and visit a traditional Danish church and the iconic Crematorium Chapel by Henning Larsen

  • Study adaptive re-use and reconstruction in Koldinghus
  • Tour significant urban sites in Århus from different eras, including the Town Hall (mid-20th century modernism), and ARoS Museum of Modern Art (21st century)