Be immersed in an abstract forest in Copenhagen, and revel in the richness of trees

Walking through a serene, abstract forest – complete with smells, sounds and shapes of logs, stumps and trunks, arranged across the room in all directions – is an inviting proposition. Yet this installation, taking pride of place in a large, high-ceilinged ground-floor area in the Material Matters show at 3 Days of Design 2026 in Copenhagen this week, is much more than a calming, grounding experience. Titled 'Wood for the Trees', led by the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC), designed by London studio Mitre & Mondays and made by specialist furniture maker Benchmark, the hardworking piece was conceived to celebrate timber as a design and building material; but also to express the richness and vulnerability of our forests as natural ecosystems.

Walk through AHEC's abstract forest

The project came to life after Mitre & Mondays met with AHEC at the latter's documentary film screening in London last year. Forested Future, directed by Petr Krejčí, explores tree ecosystems and forest environments – going beyond the wood as an end product and delving into its provenance and natural home. It also highlights how forests are living systems that can regenerate and support and give life to those around them, from fauna to human communities.

Suggesting they translate the film's vision into an immersive installation, Mitre & Mondays' three directors, Finn Thomson, Josef Shanley-Jackson and Freya Bolton, set off to create their new piece using American hardwoods. The result is now displayed at this year's 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen (10-12 June 2026).

The emerging London studio is fast making a name for itself for combining design and making through inspiring material explorations. The trio have a distinctly hands-on approach that allows them to deep dive into each material's properties, advantages and challenges, working with anything from timber to metal and stone.

'We've had this huge renaissance around food produce and understanding where our food comes from recently, for example,' Thompson says. 'As designers, we need to understand that [provenance of materials] as well, especially with really natural products, like timber. And we need to try and get closer to the natural forest to understand what we can use out of it instead of demanding what we want.'

Here, the Mitre & Mondays team blended wood structures with audio recordings of forest sounds and smells to recreate the experience of walking through nature. There are representations of 'fallen logs', which now serve as benches, 'stumps' that are seen here as stools, and 'live tree trunks' – columns of varying heights dotted across the room. The tree canopy becomes a series of delicate veneers hanging from the ceiling. Species are mixed, just as in the real forest scenario, and work together beautifully.

The team were mindful about how they use their raw material throughout, Thomson flags: 'We've kept the timber in plank form, so in future it can be used for other projects. All of this show could go back into a stack and become something else, which is really nice. We haven't affected it too much. The material retains its value.'

'Wood is nature's gift to the material world. We're surrounded by it,' says the European director for AHEC, David Venables. 'But we take the material for granted because we're in a world where there are so many materials. Nature's made it available to us; we need to respect it and value it. It is beautiful, varied and renewable.

'Wood is so unusual because you can use it in its raw form. The beautiful things we're sitting on, the objects that are part of this exhibition are all raw planks of wood. They've been cut with a fine knife, and they've been oiled with a natural oil. That is all.'

Part of the mission of AHEC and this abstract forest experience is to highlight the natural resource that forests can provide, one that we can cleverly use and must also protect. 'The power of the architect and designer to influence should never be underestimated. It starts and it ends with them,' Venables adds.

'Mitre & Mondays came back with this brilliant idea of creating an abstract forest. They were so inspired by the elements of the film, about the growth of the trees and the dynamism of nature, the selection, the planning and stewardship that foresters and communities and timber people put in place to look after their woods. This is the context that we're talking about.'

americanhardwood.org

mitreandmondays.co.uk

benchmarkfurniture.com