Dezeen School Shows: chairs made from flax fibres and PLA plastic are included in this School Show from the Royal Danish Academy.
Also included is a proposal for a harbour promoting leisure in Flensburg, Germany, and a graphic design project that aims to engage students in physics.
Institution: Royal Danish Academy
Course: Architecture and Design
School statement:
“The Royal Danish Academy is proud to present nine diverse projects, selected from the more than 240 graduation projects created by architects and designers at the 2024 graduation exhibition: New Design and Architecture.
“This selection shows how a new generation of architects and designers has worked with concrete and complex issues.
“Their projects inspire new paths towards more sustainable development and illustrate how architecture and design can help drive real societal change.
“The graduates present original and aesthetic graduation projects, which are based on science, art or practice, with several projects created in collaboration with public and private companies with input from other professional fields.
“The Royal Danish Academy has focused on the UN Sustainable Development Goals for many years. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals and their context provide an important compass for graduation projects.
“One of the driving forces in the projects is the student’s engagement in the world and how we create a viable planet for the future.
“The projects show how the new generation of architects and designers has worked with concrete and complex issues in our society.”
The Birthing Clinic – a mutually beneficial relationship between humans and nature by Alma Kober Sørensen
“Mothering Nature features a birth clinic in Rajasthan, India, through the lens of multispecies living.
“Graduate Alma Kober Sørensen has investigated how Rajasthan faces high rates of malnutrition among pregnant women and their children.
“Meanwhile, biodiversity is declining globally. The project shows how architecture can establish an environment for a mutually beneficial relationship between humans and nature.
“The proposal is a multispecies habitat with health and education facilities for children and mothers, along with habitats for insects and animals from the local ecosystem.”
Student: Alma Kober Sørensen
Course: Architecture and Extreme Environments
Tutor: Runa Johannessen
Email: alma-kober[at]hotmail.com
Beyond Debris – from physical debris to a digital material bank by Sandro Siefert
“Beyond Debris challenges contemporary demolition waste handling.
“Combining digital and traditional craft, it transforms demolition sites and their waste into urban quarries with precious building material.
“The project by Sandro Siefert leverages photogrammetry to create high-fidelity geometries and textures for objects quarried from a demolition site.
“By taking multiple images from diverse perspectives, he creates 3D models of the debris.
“This method ensures accuracy in digital representation and bridges the gap between physical and digital spatial orientations by capturing plane-reference marks.
“All objects are then catalogued in a streamlined digital material bank, which facilitates better use and understanding of reclaimed components.”
Student: Sandro Siefert
Course: Computation in Architecture
Tutor: Nadja Gaudillière-Jami
Email: sandro.siefert[at]outlook.com
Stay Soft Collection by Sarah Blicher Bruunsgaard Bek
“The Stay Soft Collection is a result of combining fashion and philosophy.
“The collection questions how humans have neglected their senses and bodily connection to their surroundings.
“The research behind the project is mainly built upon first-hand sensory experiences made by designer Sarah Bek.
“Bek maps and documented travels to New York and used these as the starting point for material, shape, silhouette and embellishment research.
“Bek works with an emotional perspective to fashion, using strategies such as user understanding through interviews and wardrobe studies, embedded storytelling and aesthetic longevity, in the aim of creating a new language of femininity.”
Student: Sarah Blicher Bruunsgaard Bek
Course: Fashion, Clothing and Textiles
Tutor: Marcus Aminaka Wilmont
Email: sarahblicherbek[at]gmail.com
Bundle – a biobased chair by Kirstine Sejersen and Jón Hinrik Höskuldsson
“Bundle is the result of material-driven investigations of the potential of bio-based composites in furniture design.
“The project was done as a collaboration between Kirstine Sejersen and Jón Hinrik Höskuldsson.
“Through experimentation, they found a material composition and a set of design principles that allowed them to design a lightweight, mono-material chair.
“The chair is produced by thermo-pressing flax fibres and bio-based PLA plastic into rigid shells.
“The goal was to enhance the properties of plastic-based products while reducing their environmental impact – increasing the aesthetic appeal of plastic products, without losing strength and durability.”
Students: Kirstine Sejersen and Jón Hinrik Höskuldsson
Course: Furniture Design – Products, Materials and Contexts
Tutor: Antonio Scaffidi
Emails: kirstinesejersen[at]hotmail.com and jonhiho[at]gmail.com
Parentheses: A Series of physics books using the visual language of formulas by Anna Rebecka Kristensson
“The project by Anna Rebecka Kristensson aims to create an interdisciplinary approach to physics education targeted at Swedish students aged 15 to 17.
“It consists of a new design of a physics book created to engage students in understanding physics formulas.
“By creating new ways of learning about the fundamentals of physics, Kristensson’s project makes a significant contribution to education.
“She uses tools from graphic design to create a more welcoming entry point to formulas in physics, especially for students early in their education.
“All content in the book, from cover to illustrations, are made of the same source of numbers and symbols.”
Student: Anna Rebecka Kristensson
Course: Graphic Communication Design
Tutor: Rasmus Spanggaard Troelsen
Email: info[at]annakristensson.com
Hafenbad – small-scale route to urban renewal by Paulina Marie Heinz
“Once a bustling port, Flensburg’s east harbour is now largely vacant. Hafenbad is a large urban project planned to develop the former industrial area into a new residential district.
“Hafenbad explores an alternative, small-scale and catalytic route to urban renewal.
“It asks the question: can we initiate cultural and urban transformation from the ground up, starting at the local level?
“Using locally mined materials, this project investigates a resource-friendly approach to design and planning practices as well as a progressive architectural language.
“The resulting harbour bath seeks to become an authentic and accessible place of leisure.”
Student: Paulina Marie Heinz
Course: Spatial Design
Tutor: Nicolas Thomas Lee
Email: pauli.heinz[at]googlemail.com
ReCraft – design elements from demolished materials by David Maximilian Schneider, Matti Elias Göran Kemppainen and Karoline Cecilie Aigner
“This project focuses on the innovative repurposing of demolished construction materials, aiming to extend their lifecycle and introduce new building practices.
“The project is a collaboration between David Maximilian Schneider, Matti Elias Göran Kemppainen and Karoline Cecilie Aigner.
“By valuing non-standardised materials, the project enables unique design possibilities and empowers architects and builders to push creative boundaries.
“The first ReCrafted materials are interior elements such as flooring and wall tiles or cladding, available in various shapes, colours and textures.
“These products originate from three different demolition sites and belong to two separate collections.”
Students: David Maximilian Schneider, Matti Elias Göran Kemppainen and Karoline Cecilie Aigner
Course: Strategic Design and Entrepreneurship
Tutors: Morten Emil Engel
Emails: david.m.schneider[at]outlook.com, mr.mkemppainen[at]gmail.com and aigkaroline[at]gmail.com
Growing together, on the banks of a dying river by Laurits Honoré Rønne
“The decaying Spree River allows new landscapes to emerge in Berlin.
“This project by Laurits Honoré Rønne explores the social and ecological possibilities in cultivating a wilderness in collaboration between citizens and resident tech companies.
“Through animation and interpretation of scientifically predicted scenarios, Laurits proposes a long-term strategy for the preservation and maintenance of a wild river delta.
“The project was presented as a spatial installation with a performance of a presentation script guiding through a digital model on a three-channel video display.
“The presentation highlighted different interventions, visions and reflections in the proposal.”
Student: Laurits Honoré Rønne
Course: Political Architecture: Critical Sustainability
Tutor: Deata Hemer
Email: lauritsronne[at]gmail.com
Imagining the Future of Lesjöfors by Astrid Broqvist
“This project aims to investigate the future of an industrial town typology in Sweden by challenging the prevailing focus on growth.
“The project by Astrid Broqvist seeks to envision the future of Lesjöfors, Sweden, a town in decline that since its peak has lost around 70 per cent of its inhabitants.
“Today many of Lesejöfors’ buildings are vacant or abandoned demolition has left gaps in the urban structure and created concerns among the people who live there.
“The project aims to promote practices of subtraction, redistribution and maintenance, through interventions on an architectural scale.
“The interventions are based on analysis conducted with the help of voices and perspectives from Lesjöfors.”
Student: Astrid Broqvist
Course: Urbanism and Societal Change
Tutor: Deane Alan Simpson
Email: astridbroqvist[at]gmail.com
Partnership content
These projects are presented in school shows from institutions that partner with Dezeen. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.
