Aware: Architecture and Senses by 3XN. How Architecture Affects Us Emotionally?

From March 22nd to September 15th, a new exhibition at the Danish Architecture Center lets us feel how architecture affects us emotionally.

We are almost always present in architecture. It is where we sleep and eat and work and gather; it is what we travel to and what we journey between. But how aware are we of the effect it has on us; on how we move and think and feel?

We know that architecture has a lasting, even irreversible, effect on the environment. But do we understand how these things are all connected?

Aware: Architecture and Senses, created by the Danish architecture and research studio 3XN GXN and the Danish Architecture Center, explores the connections between people and space, inviting visitors to experience and understand it for themselves.

Rather than showcase the studio’s body of work, the exhibition invites visitors into six immersive, 1:1 installations where the emphasis is not on form or function, but on the visitors’ experience in space. These experiences are the fundamental concepts of architecture: not brick, concrete, or steel, but relations between bodies and spaces, between spatial atmospheres and human emotions.

“Design choices are never merely aesthetic – they fundamentally influence our lives and affect our experiences,” says Kim Herforth Nielsen, 3XN Founder and Creative Director. “Architecture shapes our behaviour. Are you – are we - aware of how?”


Architecture and Senses
Architecture can thrill you or awe you, calm you down or foster connection. It can be caring and protective – or stimulate your curiosity, igniting idle senses and unfolding unseen worlds. The installations in Aware play on ideas and forms that 3XN GXN explores in its work, nudging the visitor to realise and question how space can define atmospheres and shape moods. How, for example, a staircase’s function may be to connect different levels, but its liminal atmosphere encourages unplanned connection. How timber and organic forms relate back to our deeper natures, giving us visceral connection to the natural world even as our time is increasingly spent indoors. How the tweaking of typical architectural elements makes the familiar unfamiliar, coaxing us around the corner.

Each of the spaces in Aware emphasise and twist what we expect from architecture, giving us new insight into how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. Lighting by Jesper Kongshaug and soundscapes by Mesmer further emphasise the temporal, experiential quality of the exhibition.

“These intangible, fleeting qualities have long been a driving force of 3XN GXN’s work,” explains Nielsen. “We are fascinated by how people and space interact and have a hunger to understand and work with the innate, universal dimensions that make up experience. Why? Because experience is how we all understand architecture.”
A Holistic Understanding of Architecture
Once visitors have wound their way through the installations, they arrive to the exhibition’s close: a behind the scenes look at some of the research, projects, and developments that informed the spaces they have just let behind. Made possible with support from Arup, this behind the scenes look at complete and ongoing work by 3XN GXN and Arup offers insight into how architects and allied professionals work together to create environments that stand the test of time and promote wellbeing for both people and planet. This could not be more critical. It is expected that the world population will expand from eight to ten billion people by 2050, 70% of whom will live in cities. Construction and our buildings will globally account for nearly 40% of annual CO2 emissions. We therefore face conflicting dilemmas: how do we responsibly accommodate a growing population when we also know that our planet needs us to build less?

We live in a time with significantly more expectations and demands for sustainability as a fundamental, built in responsibility in architecture. For many, sustainability conjures an image of a certain kind of architecture; one with a specific appearance and a measurably low footprint. But sustainability is also about the ability to last over time – a capacity in architecture often at the mercy of changing tastes and perceived needs.

“For spaces to last and be loved, we need to understand how we are connected to them, how they affect us and make us feel,” says Nielsen.

“In Denmark and throughout Scandinavia, there is a very strong sense of responsibility for the collective,” says Kasper Riisholt, program manager for culture at the Danish Architecture Center. “This responsibility is also about our wellbeing – that our society and space must nurture, support, and facilitate a good quality of life for everyone. For architecture to contribute positively to our wellbeing, we must understand its core: What is our relationship with architecture, what does it do to us?”


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Press release and photos courtesy of 3XN