If my first post about 3daysofdesign was about mood, this one is about the materials that made it.
Not just what I saw, but what I felt underfoot, at my fingertips, brushed against my shoulder as I passed through. Together, these brands formed a kind of room in my memory; a four-walled impression shaped by tone, tactility and care. Because while it’s easy to be swept up in the spectacle of a design fair, it’s often the foundational elements—the walls, the floors, the way light is softened—that shape our emotional response to a space. The quiet details we notice when we take in a room from the edges rather than the centre. Paint, rugs, curtains; not as decoration, but as invitations to feel.
the painted surface
Few brands grasp the emotional register of colour quite like St. Leo. Their presentation at 3daysofdesign was a quiet triumph, an ode to pigment, material and mood.
On the ground floor of their Nordhavn showroom, Tina Seidenfaden Busck’s Where Colours Unfold exhibition brought the new Bio Paint shades to life through a series of intimate tableaus. A riot of thoughtful juxtaposition, the show explored the stories colour can hold, drawing on influences as varied as Matisse, Vanessa Bell and Märta Måås-Fjetterström. Each one, layered with artworks, textiles, ceramics and antique furniture, became a living canvas; gestures in colour and texture finding surprising harmony.
Upstairs, the launch of St. Leo’s Lime Paint range unfolded with sculptural calm. Here, the interplay of light, shadow and matte mineral finish became the story. Presented as a “living installation”, the rooms were stripped back yet saturated with atmosphere; walls that glowed quietly, revealing their depth only on close inspection. Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen’s quiet architectural interventions, paired with North Zealand-inspired tones, encouraged a slower kind of looking. You didn’t just see the colours, you felt their temperature, their weight, their stillness.
It was a standout moment of tactile design at 3daysofdesign for me, where colour, finish and feeling converged in quiet, powerful ways. Both the Bio and Lime Paints are plant and mineral-based, designed for breathability, longevity and a more conscious kind of beauty.
the grounded gesture
If St. Leo explored colour as soul, the rug brands I encountered reminded me that texture, too, has a voice. Across five venues, I encountered four brands whose approaches to rug-making felt less like product showcases and more like meditations on material, gesture and space.
Maison Rhizomes at Design/Dialogue stood out for its unapologetically artistic lens. Co-founded by painter Charlotte Culot, the studio translates contemporary paintings into hand-knotted rugs, each one preserving the emotional depth of the original work, and the energy of the brushstroke; the shadow of the artist’s hand.
cc-tapis, ever the innovators, occupied two distinct spaces at Design/Dialogue and Other Circle. At the former the brand presented Monograph by Destroyers/Builders and Hypercode by Roberto Sironi. The installations leaned into tactility and architectural gesture, echoing conversations around materiality and scale. At Other Circle, the rugs became almost folkloric; two pieces from Rop van Mierlo’s Grandma Patterns collection hinting at memory, heritage and a soft kind of surrealism.
Armadillo, the Australian-born, female-founded B Corp, took a different approach, one rooted in stillness and domestic ritual. As part of Openhouse’s Gesture of Home at The Conary, Armadillo’s natural fibre rugs were layered with care and warmth by stylist Henriette Schou. A still life of comfort and conscience, it felt like a room you could exhale into. A kind of homemade tactility.
Rugs like Willow and Thatch spoke in hushed tones, soft underfoot, with subtle shifts in texture that invited pause rather than performance. The hand-knotted Agra, with its deep cut pile and light-catching surface, felt like a quiet celebration of time-honoured skill, while Malawi, ribbed and fringed in undyed wool, carried a softness that felt almost nostalgic. This was tactile design at 3daysofdesign at its most grounded, where ethics and aesthetics are not opposing forces, but part of the same woven language.
At Layered, the tone was bolder; more expressive, more gestural. Their installation at Kismet Café interpreted the Swedish ritual of fika through a design lens, pairing rugs with pastries, coffee and the work of artist Heather Chontos. Her abstract compositions, charged with movement, colour and feeling, were echoed in the designs underfoot. A section of the café was shaped to reflect her studio world: textured, intuitive, and alive with process. It offered a glimpse not just of the finished work, but of the gestures behind it: the colour mixing, the brushwork, the emotional residue of making. In a setting that invited conversation and pause, it felt like a quiet challenge to the idea that design must be polished or framed. Sometimes it’s enough to feel your way through.
Taken together, these brands offered more than beautiful rugs. They proposed the rug as canvas, conversation, companion. Something to live with, not simply walk on. This was tactile design at 3daysofdesign at its most emotive, rooted in craftsmanship, materiality and mood.
framing the light
If paint sets the tone and rugs ground the mood, then curtains—and the tracks that guide them—shape how a room breathes. They filter light, define space and shift the atmosphere with the subtlest gesture.
Tucked away in a calm, minimal setting, Stilling’s exhibition, curated by scenographer Maja Ziska, was a study in movement and material; sheer, layered beauty. Ziska approached the space like a stage, playing with light, texture and transparency to create a sense of rhythm. Curtain tracks curved and intersected above, leading the eye without demanding it. Fabrics floated between zones, creating rooms within rooms. There was a poetic tension at play between industrial hardware and soft drapery, between function and emotion, shaping curtains not merely as afterthoughts, but as integral, mood-shaping elements of a space.
Though fleeting, that installation opened a door. Since returning, I’ve looked more closely at Stilling’s work, and the quiet impact their systems have on the spaces they inhabit. At The Conary, one of 3daysofdesign’s most beautifully curated destinations, their tracks shaped light and flow with the same sense of considered ease. And in the studio of artist Birgitte Due Madsen, Stilling’s custom-curved tracks—powder-coated to match her palette—form gentle arcs that hold space for creativity.
I’ve never naturally gravitated towards curtains—always favouring the clean, modern lines of blinds—but Stilling shifted something for me. Their approach was quiet, elegant and unexpectedly persuasive.
Together, these six brands offered me something more than just tactile design. They sketched out the four walls of a home, not as limits, but as a frame.
In a festival full of ideas, these were the ones I brought back with me.
All imagery © Kate Baxter, except LAYERED x Kismet imagery by Ditte Mørkhold, and Stilling imagery via the brand.
One Response
Such a beautifully written piece! As a design student, I found the tactile elements and thoughtful aesthetics at 3daysofdesign truly inspiring