The years in Nairobi stretched from 1968-1972 and entailed a professorate in industrial design and responsibility for establishing and heading two independent departments at the University in Nairobi, respectively with education and research as the pivotal point.

Back in Denmark in 1972 Kristian and Ane Vedel settled at Thyholm by Limfjorden, where they started a design practice and a comprehensive project with Shropshire Sheep Breeding. The intention was to develop products of wool, skin and meat – among these the couple experimented with modular clothing pieces.

In hindsight, one can look at Kristian Vedel’s life and work through a design and cultural historic lens. He was shaped by the tradition of the Danish folk high school (folkehøjskolen³) by virtue of his father, Anders Aabye Vedel, Master of Theology, who was the principal of Krabbesholm folk high school. He came from a family with many cultural personalities, including his sister, Hanne Vedel , who is one of Denmark’s most skillful weavers and his aunt, Gertrud Vedel, who was a midwife and an outstanding champion of women’s rights. He had, like many furniture designers of his generation, a journeyman’s certificate as a cabinetmaker before he came under Kaare Klint’s wing at the Furniture School part of the Academy’s Architect School. As a designer, he has worked and experimented with plastic as a material, the steam bent wood and the ergonomic conditions for school children, among others. As an educator he has had a broad base from designing and modeling at Askov højskole; to teaching surveying; and the analysis of function, technology and the market at the Danish School for Arts and Crafts in Copenhagen.