Jeanette Ruby Nielsen

Jeanette Ruby Nielsen grew up in Agger, a small fishing village on the west coast of Denmark, surrounded by a landscape shaped by both nature and people. Dunes, sea, wind and the traces of those who have lived and worked there for generations have always been part of her surroundings.

The harsh western wind and the ever-changing sea became a constant presence in Jeanette’s life, and from an early age, drawing and creative work became a way for her to process her inner life and to understand the world around her.

This connection to landscape and place eventually led her to architecture. Now she works as an architect specialising in transformation and landscape architecture at the Danish practice DETBLÅ. Her work is rooted in a respect for what already exists, the buildings, materials and landscapes we have inherited, and in an interest in how we can read a place and develop site-specific architecture that builds upon its existing qualities rather than replacing them.

Alongside architectural practice, she has been part of Aarhus Art Academy, where she deepened her work with analogue methods and classical
drawing as tools for observation and expression. In recent years, she has also explored painting and different materials as a way of expressing
encounters with places, people and landscapes. This practice is, above all, a way of reaching toward the landscapes we inhabit and borrow, and of asking what it means to receive them, live within them, and pass them on.