The Royal Danish Academy - Architecture, Design, Conservation

The partnership between the Royal Danish Academy — Architecture, Design, Conservation was established in 2016. In 2025, the partnership took the next step on the journey towards creating a more diverse and inclusive view of the human in architecture and design.

The ambition of the partnership is to promote inclusion and diversity in society by actively using architecture and design as a lever to create an inclusive and equitable framework for communities for all people and bodies in the built environment.

To achieve this we ensure that all graduates of the design and architecture programmes are introduced to the latest theories and methods in universal design and at the same time that they gain concrete experience of working with a more diverse and inclusive view of the human; and with inclusive and equal communities in architecture and design projects.

The Royal Danish Academy works closely with several of the Foundation's other strategic partners: the Association of Young People with Disabilities (SUMH) and DTU, with whom the partnership has developed several courses and workshops. It's unfolded more in the video here and below.

‍Solving a community task
In recent years, at the societal level, we have seen an increase in disaffection and loneliness; at the same time, the people in Denmark are getting older, which is changing the demographics of the country - as it is many other places, too. And so, the need for inclusive and equitable frameworks for community is increasing.

At the same time, the ambitions of the partnership with the Royal Danish Academy are fully in line with Denmark's commitments in both the UN Convention on the Rights for Persons withe Disability (CRPD), the transversal agenda of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's) Leave No One Behind and the principles of the Copenhagen Lessons from the UIA World Congress of Architects in 2023, which made it clear that there is no beauty in exclusion.

Knowledge of universal design is central to the work, and this is precisely the task for which the partnership has been working purposefully and strategically since 2016.

A need for bridge building
However, although there is growing interest in the agendas that have been a mainstay of the partnership from the start, there is still a need to bridge the gap to architectural practice. And so, collaborators have been invited to participate in the work to put knowledge into practice.

Below you can see and follow past and future initiatives, activities and research coming from the partnership.

‍