Copenhagen in June appears as though the heavens are tilted towards the earth. The sun’s light lingers late into the evening, the natural wine flows cold and the air is infused with a gentle, anticipatory electricity – palpable, curious. For the art and design worlds, 3daysofdesign, the Danish capital’s annual design celebration, is the one last cultural crescendo before the city exhales the hush of summer holidays.

More than a design fair or a festival, 3daysofdesign, which grows in stature each year, feels like a seasonal ritual, a shared moment where the design community gathers not to perform for the global stage but to celebrate one another. Held from June 18 – 20 this year, it's felt more human and sensual, rather than corporate or strategic. And it is this very quality that draws people back each year. It is as architect-designer Marie Louise Høstbo remarked, standing beside a yoga mat case she designed for the Taiwanese design house Fanzi at the design event’s edition this year: "From the Danish perspective, it's amazing to see that in 12 years, 3daysofdesign has been able to engage with the whole world in Copenhagen."

In contrast to other established international design weeks, Copenhagen's version is slow-paced, more subdued and less structured: There are no gigantic expo halls or endless corridors lined with identical booths. The city became the setting: one moved by bicycle from palatial interiors to canal-side showrooms, from open-air breakfast talks to quiet gallery spaces. Mornings began with harbour swims and outdoor yoga, while afternoons drifted into laid-back DJ sets, conversations and the late northern light. Designers, founders and creative directors were all present and engaged. Dialogue replaced performance. People talked, not pitched.

This year's edition too was infused with festive and sun-soaked energy throughout, unmistakably shaped by the city's natural rhythm and spatial character. Bicycles, walking and the occasional boat ride formed the primary navigation between venues scattered across Copenhagen, Denmark. Truly, it's tough to complain about arriving at cutting-edge design exhibitions by boat. The festival's theme, Keep it Real, was not just a slogan, but a reflection of the city's enduring commitment to authenticity, community and thoughtful design. Beyond the branding, it was a sensibility that quietly informed every encounter and space. As Signe Byrdal Terenziani, managing director of 3daysofdesign, states in an official release, "Copenhagen embodies the multi-faceted meaning of Keep It Real – a sustainable, open-minded city that celebrates diversity and creative perspective."

To help guide the experience, the city was mapped into eight curated Design Districts, each shaped in collaboration with the festival's newly appointed ambassadors. For those seeking structure, Design Walks offered guided paths through the hundreds of exhibitions, turning the city into a soft, walkable map of ideas. Each of the eight new districts was anchored by an i-Point—a thoughtfully designed meeting place where visitors could find information and connect with dedicated District Managers who brought presence, guidance and a human touch to the festival’s overall experience.

Possibly the best part of 3daysofdesign, across all its editions so far, has been that sense of serendipitous discovery. This year, the online design platform Adorno made its debut with Persona through three interconnected rooms entitled The Perfectionist (inspired, reportedly, by Patrick Bateman), The Eccentric and The Romantic. The latter, styled as a futuristic antique shop, featured Playgrounds Can Age Too—a steel daybed by MARUXI (Maria Murphy), an Argentinian designer based in Amsterdam. Originally, her graduation project at the Design Academy Eindhoven, the piece was constructed with her accomplished welding as a giant spring rider that gently bounces. There she sat, entirely casually on her creation; and when she invited me to join, I did. It was unexpectedly soothing for the senses and perhaps the hipbones. In that short moment, the soul of 3daysofdesign felt perfectly distilled: a real, interactive, human take on practical design.

That spirit of dulcet surprise—of design as an encounter rather than spectacle—carried over to a harbourside gathering curated by Ark Journal and Pernille Vest. As part of the second edition of Design/Dialogue, cc-tapis presented Monograph by Destroyers/Builders, a tactile rug design collection layering papyrus-like jute and wool into stitched, collaged textile architecture. The pieces reflected founder Linde Freya Tangelder's signature method of cutting, folding and collaging, offered now in dialogue with traditional Indian craftsmanship. Before the breakfast conversation by cc-tapis and Tangelder on layering and the rug as an architectural element, guests flowed through a sunlit yoga class by the water.

Responding to and reflecting on the theme with pointed focus was the Danish Architecture Center’s exhibition Meet Me Here, employing a more spatial and architectural lens. In a time when most interactions are reduced to screens, voice notes and late-night meme dispatches, the show offered something quiet and gently radical: meeting in a physical space, in person. Developed by architecture and design studio Spacon and staged across four landings of the DAC’s central stairwell, Meet Me Here explored how our environments don’t just shelter us, but also shape how we connect with one another and with ourselves. During a week focused on physical encounters, Meet Me Here served as a conceptual anchor; a reminder that in the digital age, real presence has become its own kind of rare luxury.

Another standout was Home from Home, an exhibition by Noura Residency. Their moody mise-en-scène of half-finished, cluttered and intimate domesticity stood in deliberate contrast to sterile fair booths. Whether some objects got slightly lost in the mess (especially for buyers used to commercial presentations) seemed beside the point. Similarly, Copenhagen-based studio 91—92, founded by Zeyu Rong and Weibo Sun, presented large-scale 3D-printed wall pieces made entirely from recycled plastic. Titled Agora and Roma, the works hovered between nodding to futuristic artefacts and archaeological sites, caught mid-unearthing.

After three successful chapters of its Material Matters fair in London, Material Matters Copenhagen launched at the historic Gammel Dok building at the harbourfront of Christianshavn, where arriving by boat set the tone for a quietly elemental experience. Staged for the first time outside the UK, the London-based platform brought a strong, focused curation to 3daysofdesign, positioning itself as a key destination within the historic district. True to its name, material was not just a medium here but a message. One standout was Patch Design, whose work with recycled ocean plastic transformed waste into functional objects with surprising emotional gravity – dense, tactile pieces that seemed to carry the weight of their origin with integrity and grace.

Further, on the first floor, Hydro, the Norwegian aluminium brand, showcased their R100 exhibition – a collaboration with established designers such as Stefan Diez, Sabine Marcelis and Keiji Takeuchi. Every object, display and surface was crafted from post-consumer aluminium, sourced within 100 km of the venue. Decommissioned light poles and dismantled greenhouses were employed, giving new form and purpose to these remnants of the built environment.

At GUBI’s Nordhavn showroom, the reissue of Pierre Paulin's F300 lounge chair stood out for its balance of comfort and sculptural restraint. The furniture design subtly referenced the colour theory and compositional clarity of Anni and Josef Albers and the Bauhaus spirit. Also on view was a special edition of Paavo Tynell's 9602 floor lamp, created in collaboration with Garro Éditions, which brought together the refined elegance of Nordic modernism with the gestural dynamism of Henry Moore's blackline drawings.

Another compelling presence this year was Other Circle, a newly launched design exhibition self-described as a platform for post-disciplinary creative culture. Held concurrently with 3daysofdesign but positioned independently, it proffered a parallel narrative on dissolving boundaries between design, art, music, fashion and food to foster shared learning and cross-disciplinary exchange and growth.

The invite-only exhibition (free for exhibitors) brought together a diverse range of participants, from globally renowned names such as Gaetano Pesce (presented by Meritalia) and Noma Projects, to brands like Jotun and emerging studios such as Niko June and Joy Objects, the latter drawing a particularly strong reception. Held at The Lab, just outside the city centre, the event still managed to attract a dedicated audience, helped along by Copenhagen staples such as the Pompette wine bar and a lively evening program of parties.

As Copenhagen settles into its summer calm, a question lingers beneath the surface and glow of the now concluded design week: Can 3daysofdesign preserve its curated intimacy, or is it bound to follow the trajectory of other global design fairs – geared toward scale, spectacle and commercial overstimulation? Will it retain itself as a space for thoughtful experimentation, or will the performance of product design unveilings and media strategies eventually dull its unique edge?

This year, at least, the answer still leaned toward presence over performance. As opposed to the design industry’s hyper-branded mega-events, both 3daysofdesign and Other Circle offered different but equally grounded alternatives of sincerity, much in line with the endeavour’s theme of keeping it real. Realness, here, is not a posture but a quiet devotion: people showing up for each other, for their ideas, the community that makes it possible and the city at the height of its light.