Interior Architecture Studio

Location: Copenhagen

Type: Core Course

Term: Semester

Course Information

Credits 6
Available Fall, Spring
Program Architecture & Design
Disciplines Architecture, Interior Architecture, Interior Design, Design
Long Study Tour Germany and/or Netherlands, Finland and/or Sweden
Short Study Tour Denmark, Berlin (Full-Year Students Only)

About this course

This studio focuses on interior architectural design in a Danish context and developing a concept and project design within an existing structure. You create a design concept shaping interior space and user experience. Adaptive reuse and transformation features are among the prioritized challenges in which you engage. Studio groups combine students of different levels and backgrounds. This course is taught vertically, and expectations relate to you as an individual student.

Syllabus

Spring 2026 – TM

This is the most recent syllabus for this course

Go to syllabus

Spring 2026 – MJH

This is the most recent syllabus for this course

Go to syllabus

Spring 2026 – JC

Go to syllabus

: 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.

: Use the city as your classroom through the combined lens of learning more about Danish language and culture with a focus on architecture and design. If you enroll in this studio, consider also enrolling in the 3-credit elective course Danish Language and Culture for Architecture and Design Students.

See more details for Danish Language and Culture for Architecture and Design Students.

Travel on Study Tour

You only take one Core Course per semester, and each Core Course includes two Study Tours: one Short Study Tour to a nearby destination for three days, and one Long Study Tour to another European country for six days.

Led by your faculty, Study Tours take you into real-world settings where you will apply what you’ve learned outside the classroom.

Check out the Study Tours for this course

Students sitting on the floor in a modern building, engaging in a group activity with papers and notebooks scattered around.

Johan Carlsson

Denmark’s Design School, 2002 Interior Architecture, Architectural Association, London, 2000 RIBA 1. 2002 – 2010 Artistic director RACA, 2002 – 2018 Professor Royal Danish academy, Artistic director, architect interior JAC studios 2010- present. With DIS since 2026.

Marie-Louise Jensen Høstbo

Architect MAA, Royal Danish Academy, 2000. Høstbo, Consultant, 2020-present. Creative Design Director, Fritz Hansen, 2021-2024. Author and photographer, Secret Places, Strandberg Publishing, 2019-2021. Architect MAA, Gallery Dansk Møbelkunst, 1994-2019. With DIS since 2025.

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.

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.

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

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)