Copenhagen Field Journal

One of the first things I noticed coming from the airport and moving into the housing was that all of the machinery to transport people (like escalators, moving walkways, and elevators) are built by the Otis brand. This isn’t necessarily a Denmark specific trait or design, but shows a sort of monopoly that Otis has on the people movers throughout public spaces. Clearly the city found that Otis machinery is a reliable and cost effective option for their high-traffic spaces. 

They generally incorporate very simple iconography for simple and easy user understanding with minimal actually interaction from the user to avoid slow-down time or user error. Bold bright colors like yellow are used to warn users where the edge of the gap is or where you should be stepping off. They are not particularly designed for aesthetics, but are as simple, safe, and easy to produce as possible that you will see them everywhere.

A very noticeable difference from the US when walking down the streets of Copenhagen is the cable supported hanging street lamp used everywhere. This would be a lot more difficult to execute with American infrastructure because the building aren't all similar heights as they are here, but they simplified a problem that US has invested a lot of money into directing all of the lamps light into the street. 

American lamp posts are almost always on the side of the street pointing light towards the center, but usually very unsuccessfully covering just a small portion of the side of the street. Danish lamp solve this very simply by just putting the lamps in the center of the street so extra light emanating outwards just continues to light up the whole street. It is generally less material and cost required to set these up and make for a very unique look and simply efficient lighting method that lights the street better than the lamps I am used to.