On 10–12 June 2026, the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) returns to 3daysofdesign in Copenhagen, inviting the global design audience to explore the environmental, structural, and aesthetic potential of American hardwoods with an immersive storytelling exhibition, created by Mitre & Mondays, a London-based studio with a focus on social and environmental impact, regenerative materials, and design for reuse and repair.
Taking place within Material Matters at the historic waterfront Gammel Dok building in Christianshavn, Wood for the Trees will take visitors on a spatial journey into the world of hardwood forestry.
The exhibition draws on the ideas and themes explored in AHEC’s recent feature documentary Forested Future, which examines our relationship with forests through the lens of the people and communities whose livelihoods depend on them. Supported by the peerless craft expertise of Benchmark, Mitre & Monday’s vision for the exhibition translates the story on screen into a design-led spatial experience.
In previous years, AHEC used its platform at 3daysofdesign to showcase its collaborations with established and emerging European designers, demonstrating the creative possibilities of underutilised hardwood species through product innovation and sculptural spectacle.
This year, AHEC is broadening its focus, not only highlighting material beauty and the versatility of hardwood but also providing an overview of its role within a broader environmental system encompassing responsible forestry, carbon storage, and long-term sustainability. Wood for the Trees makes the case that using a diverse range of timber helps incentivise landowners to maintain their forests for generations to come.
Take a walk in the woods with Mitre & Mondays
A century ago, the hardwood forests of the eastern United States were little more than ‘stumps and ashes’, but in the last 100 years, they have recovered, now spanning more than 40 million acres and growing at twice the rate they are harvested.
Visitors to Material Matters will be immersed in an abstract arboreal setting, examining every stage in the journey of hardwood timber from tree to finished product through five key stages that unfold into the world of responsible forest management and make the case for the long-term stewardship of nature.
Constructed from timber donated by family-owned sawmills, exhibition materials will be presented on rotating trunks, seating and furniture evoke fallen logs, and graphics will be suspended from above, evoking the boughs of the forest canopy.
In addition to designed objects and material applications, the exhibition will include educational storytelling and environmental data, expressed through audio-visual elements, graphic and narrative displays.
In the context of an increasingly uncertain environmental future, the exhibition will explore how growth, planning, and resilience underpin the long-term health of North America’s hardwood forests, and the impact that material selection and timber use have on sustaining them.
The exhibition takes the visitor through five stages in the story of timber:
- Growth looks at how trees—among the largest and longest-living organisms on earth—reproduce, regenerate, and even clone themselves, allowing them to persist across generations, adapting to change over time.
- Planning explores both the day-to-day realities and century-spanning timescales of forest management, examining the life cycles of trees and the systems and strategies employed to sustain them.
- Selection unpacks the meticulous process of identifying trees for harvest and for preservation, and the factors that influence it, including age, health, longevity, and the tree’s contribution to the vitality of the wider forest ecosystem.
- Resilience considers the ability of a forest to withstand change—adapting to shifts in climate, resisting pests and disease, and recovering from disturbance—the role foresters play in strengthening that ability, and the impact that our material choices can have in shaping it.
- Timber looks at the point where the forest meets the human world, and reveals the history carried in the grain of every piece of wood.
Wood for the Trees is free to visit and takes place in the ground-floor exhibition space at Gammel Dok, Strandgade 27B, Copenhagen, during 3daysofdesign, 10–12 July 2026, and will include a workshop enabling visitors to interact with the materials (date TBC).
