This Is Not a Forest
Exhibition
from Jun 10
FREE ADMISSION
A sensory design installation during 3daysofdesign in Copenhagen, tracing the journey of wood from forest to architecture.
During this year’s 3daysofdesign, you can experience a spatial installation that traces the journey of wood — from the raw tree trunk on Bryghuspladsen, to the green, newly felled timber on the staircase, and onwards to a processed material and a digital forest in DAC’s Welcome area and Harbour Passage.
The installation has been developed by the Copenhagen-based design and architecture studio Archival in collaboration with Dinesen Lab and the Danish Architecture Center, and can be experienced free of charge during 3daysofdesign.
In DAC’s Welcome area, you can move through a “forest” of tree trunks, where light, sound, and scent create a sense of nature. High above, a bird can be heard; at the lowest level, perhaps the sound of a tree being felled. The air carries the scent of forest and herbs.
At first glance, it looks like nature. But this is not a forest. What is experienced as nature has been created through design.
Photo: Hampus Berndtson When Wood Becomes Architecture
The wood has been felled, cut, dried, and shaped through design and craftsmanship. The installation emerges from a series of choices: how the wood is cut, what is kept, and what is discarded. Here, it is the leftovers that define the space.
It reveals how raw material becomes architecture—and how each decision shapes our experience of space. With every stage of the process, the wood is transformed, and so is the space it creates.
Interpreting the scents of the forest
In the installation, you are immersed in an interpretation of the forest’s scents. What does wood smell like—and how does it shape the way we experience space?
The scents engage both our senses and memories. They are not just atmospheric, but an active part of the installation—shaping the experience of the space and suggesting that architecture can also be understood through smell.
DD2
In collaboration with the Norwegian artist and scent researcher Sissel Tolaas and Studio Pneuma, Dinesen Douglas unfolds as a sensory narrative told through scent. Using specially developed equipment, the molecular profile of the wood is collected and recorded — not to recreate the forest exactly as it is, but to interpret it. The result is a scent archive and the interior fragrance DD-2, which captures, in abstract form, the complexity of the wood and its journey from forest to finished product.
Floating Leaf
The scent Floating Leaf by Studio Pneuma has a fresh, green, and lightly herbal character. It is created from memories of streams and green plants in nature — the feeling of picking a plant as a child and gently crushing it between your fingers. Scents have a unique ability to evoke emotions and memories.
Photo: Maya Matsuura Archival
Archival is a Copenhagen-based design studio founded in 2018 by architect Emil Roman Frøge. Their interdisciplinary team works at the intersection of architecture, craftsmanship, and material research. Projects are developed through prototypes and full-scale material experiments in their own workshop.
Photo: Claus Troelsgaard Dinesen Lab
Dinesen was founded in 1898 and remains a leading producer of exclusive wooden flooring and interior solutions. The company’s love of wood and curiosity about its endless potential inspired Dinesen Lab — a creative branch dedicated to exploring the relationship between people, wood, and the forest through craftsmanship, art, and architecture, while fostering collaborations and projects that support this connection.
Photo: Studio Pneuma Studio Pneuma
Studio Pneuma was founded in 2019 by Diana Lindboe and Camilla Boccardi Christensen. Both are trained architects and work to translate ideas from the world of architecture into scent and design experiences. Their aim is to sharpen our awareness of the sensory. Through their products, they create atmospheres that can be experienced both in spaces and close to the body.
Bag udstillingen
Part of 3daysofdesign
Based on this year’s 3daysofdesign theme, Make This Moment Matter, the installation invites you to pause in a space that would otherwise primarily function as a passageway — and to experience the material through your senses.
This exhibition is developed by Archival in collaboration with the Danish Architecture Center and Dinesen Lab — part of Dinesen
Thanks to
Studio Atlant