Aware is an immersive exhibition that encourages us to experience, understand, and question the connection that we all have with architecture.

We are almost always present in architecture. It is where we sleep and eat and work and gather; it is what we travel to and what we journey between. But how aware are we of the effect it has on us; on how we move and think and feel? We know that architecture has a lasting, even irreversible, effect on the environment. But do we understand how these things are all connected?

Aware: Architecture and Senses, created by the Danish architecture and research studio 3XN GXN and the Danish Architecture Center, explores the connections between people and space, inviting visitors to experience and understand it for themselves.

Rather than showcase the studio’s body of work, the exhibition invites visitors into six immersive, large-scale installations where the emphasis is not on form or function, but on the visitors’ experience in space. These experiences are the fundamental concepts of architecture: not brick, concrete, or steel, but relations between bodies and spaces, between spatial atmospheres and human emotions.

Architecture can thrill you or awe you, calm you down or foster connection. It can be caring and protective – or stimulate your curiosity, igniting idle senses and unfolding unseen worlds.

The installations in Aware play on ideas and forms that 3XN GXN explores in its work, nudging the visitor to realise and question how space can define atmospheres and shape moods. How, for example, a staircase’s function may be to connect different levels, but its liminal atmosphere encourages unplanned connection. How timber and organic forms relate back to our deeper natures, giving us visceral connection to the natural world even as our time is increasingly spent indoors. How the tweaking of typical architectural elements makes the familiar unfamiliar, coaxing us around the corner.

Each of the spaces in Aware emphasise and twist what we expect from architecture, giving us new insight into how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. Lighting by Jesper Kongshaug and soundscapes by Mesmer further emphasise the temporal, experiential quality of the exhibition.

Once visitors have wound their way through the installations, they arrive to the exhibition’s close: a behind the scenes look at some of the research, projects, and developments that informed the spaces they have just left behind. Made possible with support from Arup, this behind the scenes look at complete and ongoing work by 3XN GXN and Arup offers insight into how architects and allied professionals work together to create environments that stand the test of time and promote wellbeing for both people and planet.