Spaces of Danish Welfare

Research project at the Royal Danish Academy - Architecture, Design,Conservation with participation from Institute of Architecture and Design, Institute of Architecture, Urbanism and Landscape and Institute of Architecture and Culture.

Spaces of Danish Welfare is a research project at the Royal Danish Academy that studies the spatial aspects of Danish welfare systems. The project examines the changes that a number of welfare systems are undergoing in these years through concrete and locally-based studies of collective housing, hospitals, school inclusion, security in public space and cities with a decline of welfare institutions.

After the start of the research projects, more researchers have joined the group, they deal with dementia care facilities, crematoria, the contribution of architecture to the welfare society, and the architecture of Kay Fisker.

The purpose is to analyze, discuss and visualize the changes taking place in these areas, focusing on how spatial and social changes affect each other and at once dismantle and develop welfare systems. The project is interdisciplinary and brings perspectives from anthropology, art history, architecture and urbanism together in order to explore the role of spatial change in people's everyday life and what implications this has for architecture and planning.

Through a focus on specific cases, this perspective will provide new ways to consider the dynamics of welfare systems that can complement and nuance existing research. Through the development of a coherent theoretical framework, and the development of visual methods, the project will explore concrete and complex spatial conditions and transformations in accessible and comprehensible ways.

The project inserts itself in a global debate, where the interest in the Nordic welfare systems' potentials and challenges has been rising after the 2007-8 crisis.