This studio focuses on interior architectural design in a Danish context and on developing a concept and project design within an existing structure. You create a design concept shaping interior space and user experience. Adaptive re-use and transformation features are among the prioritized challenges in which you will engage. Studio groups combine students of different levels and backgrounds. This course is taught vertically, and expectations relate to you as an individual student.
Enrollment in a professional school or department of architecture or design. Two spatial design studios at university level.
Faculty
Helene Koch
Architect and artist working across media which encompass photography, site specific installations, drawings and sculptural objects. External examiner and guest critic at Royal Danish Academy,DK, Lund Uni. Sch. of Architecture,SE, Korea University, Arch. dept,KR. Workshop for students and Faculty at Princeton SoA / PUIC, US. With DIS 2015-18 & 2025
Birgitte Borup
Interior Architect, M.D.D. (Denmark’s Design School, 1986). Own design office since 1988. Design work includes interior design, exhibition design, graphic design, and furniture design. Recipient of several international awards. Works exhibited nationally and internationally. With DIS since 1998.
Tina Midtgaard
Architect, M.A.A./M.D.D. (Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, 1992). Curator, exhibition architect and writer of reviews and essays. Operating independently within the field of spatial design with a user-centered focus on sustainable environments, universal design and new methodologies. Various employments in South Africa, Namibia, Berlin and Copenhagen. With DIS since 2005.
Long Study Tour
About this tour
The week-long study tour to Finland 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 locations such as Stockholm, Helsinki, or Turku, as well as architectural patterns of inhabitation in the more natural settings of central Finland or Sweden.
We will focus on themes of memory and identity as a framework within which the designs and sites can be understood. 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.
To add to your understanding of the cultural identity of Northern Europe, you will have the opportunity to explore nature, visit museum exhibitions, see the major sites, and taste local cuisine. The sites visited, as sensory architectural experiences, provide 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 design 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 religious architecture: Skt. Petri Chapel at Klippan, the Woodland Cemetery near Stockholm, Chapels of the Holy Cross and Resurrection in Turku, or Myyrmäki in Helsinki
Tour works by Alvar Aalto including Jyväskylää University, Saynätsalo, Muuratsalo, Paimio Sanatorium, the Academic Bookstore, Finlandia Hall, or the Aalto Studio and Home in Helsinki
Explore patterns of urban development in major Northern European cities like Stockholm or Helsinki
Looking for some advice? We’ll support you every step of the way.
