Design
June 19, 2025
6 Min Read

Three collaborations of note from 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen

Writer

Nic Monisse

At 3 Days of Design, there’s a tendency for brands to come together, showing work side-by-side and collaborating on projects on show at the event. Here are three of our favourite groupings and partnerships that show it pays to play nice with others.

1.
The Salon: Other Circle
Design is everywhere: just ask Silas Adler, creative director of new design salon Other Circle. Debuting alongside 3 Days of Design at The Lab, a vast industrial venue in the northwest of Copenhagen, the aim of the showcase is to explore how the realms of design, art, music, food and fashion often overlap. “The boundaries between creative disciplines are dissolving and the way that we engage with culture is shifting,” he says. “There’s a need for spaces that reflect this fluidity. Creatives are questioning the old models and pushing for something more connected, more alive.”

The breaking down of industry barriers is already commonplace in Milan, where luxury fashion houses take over the city’s design week. But Copenhagen has maintained a more siloed approach – at least for now. Adler’s background in the fashion industry (he co-founded streetwear brand Soulland in 2002) might explain this desire to do away with the rule book and shake up the Danish design scene.

The programme at Other Circle features more than 50 participants, including local food institutions Atelier September and Noma Projects, as well as Berlin-based Lotto Studio and Reidar Mester (pictured above, top), Stockholm-based Joy Objects (above left) and Italy’s Meritalia (above right). It’s an eclectic line-up that’s sure to delight. “That’s what my team and I want to focus on,” says Adler. “Joy and inspiration.”
othercircle.com

Other Circle runs until 20 June, from 09.00 to 19.00, at The Lab, Vermundsgade 40B, Copenhagen.

2.
OEO Studio X Time & Style
At 3 Days of Design, Copenhagen-based OEO Studio, known for its refined interiors and considered product work, joined forces with Japanese furniture maker Time & Style, celebrated for its craftsmanship and fresh perspective on materiality. Their joint showcase brings Japanese and Danish aesthetics into quiet harmony. The Kouryu chair – a tactile piece featuring a sculptural wooden frame and a plush tatami seat – is case in point. Here, OEO Studio co-founder Thomas Lykke and Time & Style co-founder Yasushi Yoshida reflect on their collaboration and a shared pursuit of care in working with wood.

Tell us about the role that timber plays in your work.
Yasushi Yoshida: Japanese timber is available on the market but at Time & Style we buy directly from the forest. We have a personal relationship with the forestry people, so they contact us if wood is available. We then move the timber to our factory to dry for one or two years.

Thomas Lykke: It’s important to remember that the forest is not here for us – it’s the other way around. As a designer, it’s valuable to respect that a piece of wood is not just a piece of wood – it had a living spirit before. You have to respect that when you turn it into furniture.

What considerations shape the way that you select and use timber?
YY: It’s trendy to use oak from Hokkaido, where our factory is based. We source a lot of our timber from there and are competing with companies from across the globe who come to buy oak because it’s rich in tannins for wine and whisky. Then there’s tall-growing zelkova hardwood, the timber used for big pillars in temples some 1,200 years ago. For that reason, it is seen as conservative to use zelkova in modern Japanese homes. Until two or three years ago, we did not have dry zelkova wood but we sourced it from Honshū. It’s still rare.

The Kouryu chair that you co-created is made from Japanese zelkova. How does this honour the material and make people want in their homes?
TL: I only learned about zelkova hardwood through Time & Style and its use in sacred temples and shrines. It is seen as a more conservative wood in Japan and is rarely used for furniture. I was fascinated by the fact that I had never encountered it before. I love the grain, the colour and how you can treat it. Time & Style uses natural beeswax, white soap and iron water, which draws out the acidity and makes the zelkova incredibly soft.
timeandstyle.com; oeo.dk

See Time & Style and OEO Studio’s work during 3 Days of Design at Pakhus 11, Dampfaergevej 2.

3.
Café A-N-D Bar
Canadian lighting studio A-N-D has crossed the Atlantic and set up a temporary café and bar with furniture by French maker Boon Editions. As part of this group showcase, Irish glassware brand J Hill’s Standard is making its Copenhagen debut. “The fair has a reputation for being a smaller show that has long reach,” says Ava Kelly (pictured below right with Lukas Peet, co-founder of A-N-D), who helms J Hill’s Standard alongside her mother, Anike Tyrrell. “It’s also more digestible and community-based than some of the larger festivals, which have become behemoths.”

Titled Cafe A-N-D Bar, the hospitality-oriented setting allows for made-in-Ireland glassware to be admired in use, be it a nifty carafe-and-glass set by Amsterdam-based designer Aldo Bakker or tumblers by Irish architect Nigel Peake. “It’s an opportunity to highlight the functionality of our products and the joy of creating considered environments for our daily rituals,” adds Kelly. “Who wouldn’t want to sit on a Boon Editions sofa with our tumbler in hand, sipping a cheeky whisky under the gentle illumination of an A-N-D light?”
a-n-d.com; boon-editions.com; jhillsstandard.com