Experiments with Willumsen's Universe

By design students from the Royal Academy

January 26 - March 15, 2023

The museum's halls display design proposals and material studies carried out by design students from the Royal Academy of Denmark. The students have worked based on inspiration in Willumsen's universe and based on his works, curiosity about materials and colors, and using the museum's space as inspiration and framework for their projects.

The students are currently training to become designers in the bachelor's program Product+, and here they show their results from the first semester in the two study areas "Clothing and Textiles" and "Furniture Design, Space and Materials".

In "Clothing and Textiles", the students have taken a work as a starting point for a design project and worked with the design process and form development in knitwear and woven fabrics. They have been tasked with experimenting with material choices and techniques, and during the projects they have become skilled in making qualified decisions based on their experiments. The interaction between body, silhouette, technique and material has been the main criteria in the design of an upper part in either knitwear or woven fabrics.

In “Furniture Design, Space and Material”, the students have worked on creating a resting place for visitors to Willumsens Museum. Their project has been divided into three parts: Color, Material and Design Concept. First, the students have worked on registering Willumsens' works, isolating individual colors, describing the character of the color and discussing the quality of the color through studies and experiments. Next, the students have challenged themselves by creating materials with a biological basis such as starch, proteins and collagen. Through material design and experiments, they have looked for technical properties, sensory qualities and aesthetic effect. Finally, the students have designed a resting place for Willumsens Museum based on their color studies and material experiments.