Have you ever jumped on a trampoline covered rooftop overlooking Copenhagen?

Author: Hayden Wyrick | Major: Interior Architecture and Design

I had the opportunity to study abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark with DIS for 7 weeks. One of the main reasons why I chose to study abroad with DIS Copenhagen was because they were offering a Furniture Design Studio. The University of Arkansas offers a similar class, but I have always admired Scandinavian, specifically Danish design because of the materials used and the functionality of each product. Many people would recognize this design style in the U.S. in places like IKEA, but it expands much further than that. I wanted to be able to learn and immerse myself in a design culture that I have always found inspiration from. Over the course of the summer, I took two classes; one was a lecture course and the other was a studio course. I enjoyed the lecture course because different guest speakers would visit often to teach on their area of expertise. It felt like I was getting information from the actual source rather than a textbook or web article. I especially enjoyed the studio course. The focus of the studio course was to design a chair and then utilize tools in the woodshop to bring this design to life. My main studio professor was a joy to work with and I respected him because he had great knowledge and wisdom. He was a professional cabinetmaker before he was a professor and this allowed him to be hands on with all his students, as well as offer valuable insight when building with wood. Along with this professor, there were 7 other teachers/assistants that helped either in the classroom or in the woodshop. All of them had backgrounds in woodworking and some of them had even won product design competition shows, making them somewhat famous in Denmark. All these people were great resources for me in the woodshop. The woodshop challenged me because I didn’t know how to use any of the machines beforehand, yet I knew they were powerful and could be dangerous if you didn’t know what you were doing, there was no room for mistakes. Along with all the helpful professors and assistants, I believe the people I studied abroad with made the classes differ from other classes I have taken at UARK. Every student came from different backgrounds. Some were product design majors, some were industrial design, and a few were interior design. It seemed that the product and industrial designers had more experience at this scale of work, and I was able to learn from them and follow their lead through the course. Also, these three types of designers look at design in different ways, so it was interesting to analyze how everyone’s final product turned out when comparing that to their major. I also believe the class was very hands on. At the U of A we use computer programs for almost every design thing that we do but in my summer class we didn’t have to use a computer once. Everything was hand drafted and further hand crafted. I also got to work in the metric system which I found much easier than the imperial system. These classes have advanced my academic goals because it is expanding my knowledge through learning more subject areas of design. I tend to work with bigger scale projects related to 1,000’s of square feet and for this class I was confined to a 80cm x 80cm x 80cm “box” that I must design within. Through this shift I felt I had learned how to pay attention to details even more and by learning how to work with wood, I felt I am now able to better understand how things are truly constructed. This was a concept I was not grasping prior to taking this studio course. The courses advanced my professional goals because I was able to network and meet people from not only Denmark but also all over the U.S. I will be working in the same field as these people some day and it is helpful to know that I have connections and resources to rely on for a new job or advice on how to design something in the future.

When they say Denmark has some of the world’s happiest people, I now understand why. The culture within Copenhagen is so special and something I will forever be grateful that I got to experience. A big thing in Copenhagen is biking. I was able to rent a bike for the summer semester and I rode it everywhere I went. The city is set up so that there is a car lane and a bike lane, but the bike lane is just as big as the car lane. The bike lanes even have their own stoplights, and they are spread across the entire city so you can access just about any place you want by bike. It was always crazy to see rush hour bike traffic around 8 AM and 5 PM. I didn’t have one bad experience with the food there and I especially loved their coffee. Something that I found unique about Copenhagen was it has that same European city charm but with touches of new modern architecture. It made the city feel new and fresh while still holding on to what got it to that point. There was also so many fun things to do there. At almost all the parks they had workout equipment and things like concrete ping pong tables which encourages adults to be outside and play just as much as their kids. One week out of the course we had traveled to Sweden and Finland which no words will ever be able to describe how amazing this trip was. The study tour was set up so that we would visit places related to furniture, whether that be taking a tour of a factory and seeing how a chair is made in this setting or going to warehouses where just about any famous chair you could think of was there. We also got to see things that were related to the culture and history of the places we visited as well which I appreciated. On this trip we got to take a cruise ship from Stockholm, Sweden to Helsinki, Finland. I got to see the sunrise over the Baltic Sea, which is something I will never forget, and this was my first ever cruise ride which I thoroughly enjoyed. Finland was also such an amazing place. We got to visit AAlvar Alto’s home and office, and we got to see a few of his built projects. This was such a surreal experience because he is a famous architect, and he is talked about quite often in design school. Overall, the people in Denmark, Sweden and Finland are great, welcoming people who give you space to do your own thing without judgement.

I would 100% and a thousand times over recommend this program to other students. You get to meet so many cool people while also designing and building your own chair! I know there were many other design courses offered as well and at the end of the summer we got to go on an exhibition and see what everyone else had been working on. Copenhagen had so much to explore and do and I wasn’t even able to see everything I wanted to. Looking back, I think I could have tried and planned more of a “itinerary”, but I don’t regret the spontaneous of it all either. If there is one thing that I wish, I knew beforehand it would be understanding the climate I would be living in. Copenhagen is surrounded by water, so it was quite windy at times, and it doesn’t get hotter than 80 degrees there in the summer. I feel like I had packed all the right things but there were some things I could have lived without. I have returned home at this point and the first thing I did was drink a nice cold glass of water with ICE!