06/18/2026
I’ve spent years visiting the design and art weeks the field is supposed to revere. This year, for the first time, I went to Copenhagen. My expectations were high. 3 Days of Design met them, and quietly rearranged a few things I thought I knew.
The first thing I felt was that it was human. Not human as a brochure word, but human in the way the encounters were about connection rather than transaction. I’ve been to enough of these weeks to feel the difference. The brands weren’t chasing clients or the biggest order. They were at home, and they were eager to host you. You walked into a space and someone wanted to tell you the story, not just sell you one.
It took me a day to understand why. In Copenhagen, design isn’t a product category. It’s the medium people live in. That single fact explains everything else. The brands don’t need to sell, because the work already speaks, so the encounter becomes hospitality instead of a pitch. The same instinct runs from the plate in a restaurant to the metro: it was the first European city where I felt very comfortable underground. When design serves people rather than waits to be sold, you feel it everywhere, down to how you move through a station.
It also made me want to correct something. We’ve come to mistake Scandinavian design for white oak, a white kitchen, and a beige sofa with no soul in it. That isn’t it. Real Scandinavian design is vibrant. It’s warm. It’s about being comfortable. Alone or with friends. My favorite “Less is more” is everywhere, and it has nothing to do with emptiness, or with black and white. It’s about design forward thinking. Design here comes from the words function & aestetic. Not decoration.
That’s why the week itself felt different, too. It was about people, about us. No hours in line to get into the exhibition. Places to sit, a glass of wine, a real conversation with someone you’d just met. Every space felt like arriving at someone’s home, where they had been waiting to host you.
I left with a calm I’m still carrying. The sense that life can be enjoyed without noise. A reminder of humanity and connection in a time of AI fatigue and the constant running toward the next thing.
