At 3daysofdesign, Intimacy Beats Virality
FRAMA’s "STRUCTURES OF LIVING" exhibit. Courtesy of FRAMA.
At 3daysofdesign, Intimacy Beats Virality
HURS dives into how Copenhagen's 3daysofdesign fair confronts the design industry's authenticity crisis, exploring the tension between creating for algorithms versus human experience and what it means to "keep it real" in an increasingly digital world.
By Bonnie Langedijk
The design world faces a fundamental tension. As social media algorithms dictate what we see and AI tools reshape creative processes, designers and brands are grappling with how to maintain authentic connections with audiences while navigating an increasingly saturated, homogenized landscape. This year, the Danish design fair 3daysofdesign reflects this challenge with its theme "Keep It Real".
Since its first edition, the Copenhagen event has evolved from a local showcase into an essential moment on the international design calendar hosting over 200 exhibitions, showrooms and events across the city. While this growth is to be applauded, it also reflects a broader tension within design fairs themselves as they become cultural moments that attract audiences far beyond design. On one hand, they can be spaces for genuine connection and dialogue, places where meaningful encounters happen between designers, brands, and audiences. On the flip side, they risk becoming spectacles rooted in marketing moments designed for virality rather than substance.
The Algorithm Trap
The way we consume and understand design has shifted profoundly. The traditional relationship between designer and audience has been disrupted by the velocity of digital media. Design has become content, compressed into square formats and consumed at scroll speed.
This transformation fundamentally alters the design process itself, as designers and brands feel pressure to produce work that performs. The result is a design culture increasingly optimized for the two-dimensional screen rather than three-dimensional human life.
Josephine Yaa Akuamoah, Creative Director and Founder of Copenhagen-based design company File Under Pop, sees this shift as a return to essential questions about human presence and interaction. "To present work in person is to return to the body—to scale, to weight, to texture, to presence," she observes. Her approach to this year's fair reflects this philosophy, with File Under Pop Casa on the island of Papirøen in central Copenhagen. The cross-disciplinary project opens new dialogues with collaborators and design lovers who seek deeper human engagement. "Surfaces can't be flattened into pixels. They must be touched, stood next to, moved around," she explains.
Danielle Siggerud and Orit Elhanati’s Silencio exhibit during 3daysofdesign.
Cappelen Dimyr’s exhibit with Malene Malling highlights their shared passion for textiles and textures.
The CEO of design house GUBI, Marie Kristine Schmidt echoes Akuamoah’s message. "In-person design experiences aren't a luxury, they're essential," she argues. "At GUBI, we design for the senses, and no screen can truly replicate the feeling of form, the weight of a material, or the way light moves across a surface." Their ambitious four-space presentation at 3daysofdesign created emotional connections that digital never could. Visitors were invited to explore the house's newest launches—including sculptural reissues by Afra and Tobia Scarpa and Carlo De Carli and contemporary pieces by AMDL CIRCLE led by Michele De Lucchi—as well as experiential activations including the Beetle Bar and an exhibition in collaboration with Brian Rideout. "More than just showcasing products, we hope to create a lasting emotional connection, leaving guests with a deeper sense of what design can do and how it can make you feel," Schmidt explains.
Marianne Goebl, Managing Director of Artek sees the value of the digital world, but emphasizes the importance of real-life experiences: “Many aspects of a product can undoubtedly be communicated very well, if not better, digitally. However, tactility, comfort and the dialog that unfolds between people, objects, light and space are still best experienced physically,” she shared.
Danish brand FRAMA's DNA is built around human connection. Creating objects for living—from furniture to home goods and self care products—the brand has always deeply understood the value of creating in-person activations with intention, whether it’s an intimate dinner or their now infamous block parties. "The in-person moments are what makes FRAMA special—engaging with product, spaces, and people 1-1 is what creates a genuine brand connection. It sounds obvious, but so much is now built for the digital space. Being a brand that's built for touching, feeling, and living means we're at our best IRL. It's so important to humanize your brand, regardless of where you fall on the luxury scale. People connect with other people, and they do it best in person," FRAMA's Head of Marketing Rhya Johnston-Wallace explains.
The Authenticity Emergency
This pressure to create for viral moments and to design what performs has created a crisis of authenticity in design. We're scared to experiment, terrified to fail, addicted to the safety of proven formulas. What's truly radical today is having a unique point of view and sticking to it. The "Keep It Real" theme speaks directly to this challenge.
"I think designers and design brands have a responsibility to stay grounded in the face of the design-consumption-led era. If the urge can be resisted to create pieces for the moment, and instead to focus on what value the pieces bring to human life, I believe the design world will have done its job," Johnston-Wallace argues.
Authenticity in this context isn't about rejecting digital tools or social media entirely. Instead, it's about maintaining a clear point of view that transcends platform-specific demands and centers human needs. Marie Kristine Schmidt believes this requires unwavering conviction: "You need a point of view and the courage to stay true to it. For GUBI, that means embracing contrast and complexity: merging design eras, crossing disciplines, and balancing eclecticism with editorial focus."
The most powerful partnerships emerge from this conviction. Cappelen Dimyr's collaboration with Malene Malling demonstrated how authentic voices amplify rather than dilute each other, creating new expressions of their shared passion for textiles and textures. Orit Elhanati's joint showcase Silencio with architect and interior designer Danielle Siggerud followed this sentiment. Long admirers of each other's work, Elhanati presented her inaugural collection of sculptural bronze objects alongside Siggerud's architectural practice in Copenhagen's historic Laksegade quarter.
"Silencio is not, at its core, an exhibition about a desk or objects in the traditional sense. Orit’s work is elemental and intimate; bronze pieces shaped as if by memory itself. Mine is a desk re-seen, not reinvented. A continuation rather than a debut. What brings us together is not contrast, but resonance," Siggerud explains. Sometimes the most radical act is recontextualization over reinvention. Siggerud's inclusion of her own working desk, a wedding gift shown at the fair previously, demonstrated how context transforms meaning. Not everything needs to be new to have value.
"When it's done right, Design Week becomes a portal. It's not about showing off. You're offering a way into your process, your obsessions, your language. This year we worked with a space that already had a story. We didn't try to change it. We added to it. That's what I care about. Expanding the world around my work. Giving people something they didn't know they were looking for," Elhanati adds. "My work isn't made to be scrolled past."
GUBI’s Showroom 2025, featuring the F300 Lounge Chair by Pierre Paulin. Courtesy of GUBI.
Danielle Siggerud and Orit Elhanati’s Silencio exhibit during 3daysofdesign.
Physical Space as Rebellion
In an increasingly digital-first world, design fairs have become spaces to satisfy our cultural hunger for IRL interactions and creative exploration. As a result designers and brands are changing how they approach these events. Rather than simply displaying products, fairs have become an opportunity to create immersive experiences that invite deeper human engagement.
"It's not just about showcasing products. It's about inviting people into our world. 3daysofdesign is very much about stepping into the 'homes' of each brand and experiencing their DNA in full," designer and gallery owner Louise Roe argued. Her three-location presentation creates what she calls "a fluid, immersive experience"—including a collaboration with architect duo Mentze Ottenstein on new lighting and modular systems.
FRAMA's approach exemplifies this immersive philosophy. This year, they showcased "STRUCTURES OF LIVING," an exhibition that offered a framework for an alternative kind of living. The interconnected steel structure overtook the whole FRAMA space with areas for cooking, reading, sleeping, and relaxing. Channelling schools of thought from visionaries like Charlotte Perriand, Bruno Munari, and Buckminster Fuller, they applied their principles alongside their own design language. "Whenever we present an exhibition in our space, we hope it helps people understand our universe more fully while challenging their preconceived notions of FRAMA. The goal is always to inspire thought and creativity in connection to the brand," Johnston-Wallace explains.
The “Home from Home” exhibition curated by Charlotte Taylor and Maeva Massoutier at Noura Residency went further, exploring how multiple disciplines can converge to create spaces that are alive. The exhibition showcased the work from brands like Tekla, Aesop, ENSO and Service Projects alongside the work of artists, chefs and designers like Garance Vallée, Ana Krâs, Imogen Kwok and Caroline Sillesen in a residential setting. Rather than displaying objects in sterile showroom conditions, the space changes across each day and week, with meals and activations. A real reflection of modern living.
The Responsibility Revolution
Design shapes behavior, environments, and cultural values. With that power comes responsibility that extends far beyond materials and manufacturing to encompass our fundamental humanity.
"Design isn't just about objects. It shapes behaviors, environments, and how we experience the world as human beings. That comes with real responsibility that extends beyond materials and manufacturing, it's also about cultural and emotional sustainability. Are we creating objects that endure in meaning as well as in use? Do they honor human dignity and experience?" Marie Kristine Schmidt said. Elhanati agreed "In a sense, designs shape the rituals of everyday life. The weight of a fork. The line of a chair. The silence of a room. If we only make what's trending, we erase what's real about being human. So I try to stay close to instinct. To memory. To touch. I think it's my duty to remind people that they're still human,” she said.
This responsibility manifests in how designers approach their daily practice with human needs at the center. Louis Poulsen's Monique Faber emphasizes this connection: "The connection between the emotional aspect of the design and its function is important to us. Especially light's potentiality to bring a soothing dimension to human life."
The question of cultural responsibility also extends to how designers present their work and engage with the broader design ecosystem. Danielle Siggerud advocates for a more considered approach: "I have never believed in producing for the sake of production. Good design does not demand constant reinvention. It asks for presence. For care. For the patience to evolve within human context."
Louise Roe’s collaboration with the Danish architect duo Mentze Ottenstein. Courtesy of Louise Roe.
Home from home at Noura Apartment 2, curated by Charlotte Taylor and Maeva Massoutier.
The Future Fight
3daysofdesign itself embodies the tension between growth and authenticity that defines contemporary design culture. "3daysofdesign has grown in extraordinary ways. From a small, almost local celebration into an international design event embraced by voices from Italy, France, Spain, and far beyond. At the same time, it has managed to keep its human soul intact,” Akuamoah said.
Danielle Siggerud identifies a fundamental shift: "Design Week has gradually shifted from being product-driven to becoming idea-led. From showcasing objects to meaningful human experiences. I believe it's a longing for depth, meaning and storytelling that speaks to our shared humanity."
The future of design—and design fairs—may depend on their ability to maintain focus on depth over breadth, human meaning over spectacle. “Our hope is that it continues to grow. Not just in reach, but in resonance. That it remains a place for ideas that serve humanity, not just products," Schimdt shared.
Yet challenges remain. "I think it's grown louder, faster, more polished, like everything else around us. But there are still cracks where something real and human can happen. I hope those cracks don't close. I hope we keep making space for the quiet, the strange, the things that don't fit easily into captions but speak to something deeper in us,” Elhanati said.
Humanity Over Virality
The choice is stark: we can continue optimizing for algorithms and viral moments, or we can remember that design exists to serve human life. Design that moves, connects, and endures demands human presence, patience, and the courage to resist the pressure to create for the moment rather than for meaning.
In Copenhagen this June, that human reality unfolded through direct encounter, one conversation at a time. The question isn't whether we can keep it real, it's whether we're brave enough to try.
