Experience
Design as industrial policy
Three days in a city where design is neither a taste nor a craft: it is a public decision, with its own building, its own money and its own rules. You look at how a small country decided to use design as an economic lever, and what it had to build to pull it off.
On this page
Fact sheet
- Days
- 3
- City
- Copenhagen
- Recommended season
- all year, January included, with a note on the hours of daylight
- Group
- 15 to 25 participants
- Language of the visits
- English; confirmed on booking
- Schengen days used
- 3 out of 90, counting the day of entry and the day of exit
- Price
- Quotation on request
→ Request a quotation · Download the itinerary in PDF
In the quotation we write which sites are confirmed and which are being confirmed, one by one.
Itinerary day by day
Day 1 — Arrival and opening
In the afternoon, the Danish Architecture Center, inside the building that also houses the next day's hub: it is the exhibition side, with a public ticket desk, and it serves to give context before meeting the people who work there.
In the evening, a two-hour opening session.
Day 2 — The hub
In the morning, BLOXHUB, on the third floor of the same building on Bryghuspladsen. It is the community that brings together companies, institutions and research on the city, architecture and urban sustainability. The visit request goes through a public form asking for the organization, the country, the purpose, the number of delegates and the type of delegation: students are one of the form's explicit options, and that is the reason we put this site in the catalog instead of promising a generic «Danish ecosystem».
The hub's meeting rooms can only be booked by members. If the group needs a seated working session, it has to be arranged somewhere else, and the program handed over says where: it is not a detail, it is half a day of logistics.
In the afternoon, a three-hour working session at a venue stated in the program.
Day 3 — The option and the closing
In the morning, closing with eight-minute presentations.
A separate option, with its price stated in the quotation. Some 260 kilometers from Copenhagen is the home of a toy maker that offers a visit format where you meet a person who designs the product. It is the only stop in the whole catalog where that happens, and that is why it exists as an option. It costs a whole day of travel on top of its price, so it is not inside these three days: whoever wants it asks for it and we put it in the quotation as a separate line, with its cost written next to it. Inside a three-day route it would eat the route whole.
What you visit
| Place | What it is | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Danish Architecture Center, Copenhagen | Exhibition center with a public ticket desk, in the same building as the hub | Bookable |
| BLOXHUB, Copenhagen | Community of companies, institutions and research on the city and urban sustainability; visit request through a public form that lists students among the types of delegation | On request |
| LEGO House, Billund | Option outside the package, some 260 km away; format with a private guide and a meeting with a member of the design team | On request, with the price stated in the quotation |
What this experience does not include today, and we write it ourselves
Copenhagen is home both to the national design center and to one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Europe, and those are the two things a group would expect. For neither of the two is there verified visit information today and we have no channel: so we do not name them and we do not promise them.
What is included and what is not
Included: admissions and visits to the confirmed sites, the booking and coordination with whoever receives the group, the venue for the working session, the guided sessions totalling five hours, the materials, one person from the Istituto with the group throughout the experience and the certificate of participation in the experience.
Not included: flight, transfers to and from the airport, lodging, meals, urban transport, personal travel insurance, nor the Billund option, which is a separate line in the quotation with its price written out.
The season, and why
It is sold all year, January included: it is a city that works in winter and where tourism stops, which makes the people you want to talk to more available.
In January the hours of daylight in Copenhagen are few, and that is why the itinerary in this city is built around the hours of daylight and not around waking hours: the visits are concentrated in the middle of the day and the working sessions sit at either end. It is a decision we take when building the program, but we write it down so the group understands why the day is shaped that way.
Logistics and capacity
The two main sites are in the same building and reached on urban transport: it is one of the most compact routes in the catalog.
The recommended group is 15 people: it is the size that reaches the group rates without going over the access limits of the visits. The hub does not publish a capacity ceiling, and that figure is missing: a delegation above twenty-five people is negotiated in advance, and the risk of not doing so is finding out late. Above 25 the itinerary splits into two slots, the day gets longer and the cost per person does not go down.
Cover
The program includes an accident and public liability policy for the whole stay. The sums insured, the insurer and the policy number are published once it is taken out and are attached to the contract; until then they can be requested in writing, with an answer within two working days.
Do you want it to count as training, with a certificate? This experience can be built into an Istituto program, with classroom hours, a piece of work to deliver and a certificate of attendance. → For groups
Related experiences
Students talking to students (3 days, Helsinki) · Five countries, one city in each (15 days) · Six countries, and a meeting with the person who designs (20 days)
Let us talk about this route
We answer within two working days with the dates, the day by day program and the quotation.