AS ABOVE, SO BELOW

belove (as above so below) – Positive Realities for People Created by People


belove is a design project that questions the current focus of cities by resonating to e-commerce, the earth’s ecology and liberal capitalism. The project is separated into three dimensions: a global movement, a utopian city, and a local site in Berlin. The global movement is led by professionals using their skills to push Industrial Revolution 4.0 towards a sustainable future for our planet. Through shared values, its mission is to empower future generations to shape their own destiny. The imagined future city offers activities accessible to all through democratized spaces that produce artefacts of culture by connecting people and fostering a sense of community. Within this global framework and constructed context, belove proposes subentity, a cathedral of the new century and the first inclusive club in the “world’s nightlife capital.” The space is provided by the city, to be run and curated by the local community and members of belove. subentity displays Berlin’s unique identity in the form of a reimagined community center that celebrates culture. The site is the lower level of Moritzplatz subway station in Kreuzberg, Berlin, built in 1926 by architect and designer Peter Behrens. It belongs to the U10, an unfinished “ghost line” with eleven stations running across Berlin. The lower level was filled with concrete in 2019 to add load-bearing capacity due to heavy traffic above ground. The imagery of burying one of the few spaces free of monetary value under concrete speaks volumes about the state of public space in today’s city. This makes it an ideal space to realize the mission and vision of the belove movement.

PIA SOPHIE STEINHARDT is a Berlin-based interior designer with a passion for reusing existing structures to create new places for people to play, engage, and explore. She is a Burberry Design Scholarship recipient and recent graduate of the Interior Design MA program at London’s Royal College of Art. From 2012 she worked in hospitality design in London and Berlin, and together with the audiovisual collective Lichtgestalten she owned and curated a club in a former bomb shelter in Stuttgart, hosting regular events that created a playground for human interaction through space. In 2016 she founded her studio pinkful, and supervised projects like the re:publica festival, Bar Convent Berlin, and scenographic works for film and advertising.