Aarhus School of Architecture, Denmark

This summer I commenced a semester abroad at the Aarhus School of Architecture in Denmark. Unlike UTS, the school solely focuses on the discipline of architecture, resulting in an educational environment that intensely revolves around all things design and creativity. The school operates in a similar manner to a 9-5 workday with the expectation that all students are on campus for the 8 hour period and slowly work through their assigned work in a self-directed manner with lectures and workshops interspersed throughout the week. This has created a really strong and interconnected community amongst both the exchange students and the full-time students as there is always somebody around to talk to and work with. Each day there is a designated lunch hour where everyone stops work to eat together and break up their workday. It’s started to get warmer and sunnier so we often sit outside and have a picnic lunch to enjoy the weather 🌷⛅️

Each unit in the bachelors course operates around different projects, student housing, a rural research centre, a library, community housing, just to name a few. The school is actually changing how they structure the classes for the next school year as they are finding there is too much disparity between the classes and their associated knowledge so I assume the new curriculum will be similar in structure to Studio 4 for the upcoming semesters.

So far the workload has been less in comparison to home so there has been lots of time to explore the city and make really good friendships. The type of work is also very similar. We have complete creative control over our work with a large emphasis on abstract and conceptual thinking with minimal technical expectations. Some units work individually with 3-5 day workshops in groups and other units work completely in groups. Unfortunately we didn’t get to choose which unit we wanted to do and we’re randomly assigned. I was lucky enough to go on a field trip to Larvik in Norway whilst others got to go to Copenhagen and Malmö, in Sweden, to further their studies.

It has to be one of my favourite things about studying here. The school really uses all of its resources and knowledge to educate the students in situ, rather than just choosing a convenient site near the college campus. We have also have had several talks from firms like 3XN GXN, C. F. Møller & Link Arkitektur explaining their processes and ethos, which has been really interesting and provided us with lots of connections within the field which coincidently also have practices in Australia. Outside of uni we spend lots of time riding our bikes around the city, going to Friday Bars, thrift shopping, winter bathing and travelling. I’ve managed weekend trips to Norway, Sweden and Germany and other friends have done London and Paris too ✈️🚆🚌

Alexandra Reed
Bachelor of Design in Architecture / Master of Architecture
Aarhus Arkitektskolen, Denmark
Global Exchange Scholarship

For more information about the UTS Global Exchange program please visit: www.uts.edu.au/thinkglobal