Since Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the German Federal Government has stopped the approval for the operation of the Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 2. Opposite Office was commissioned to design an alternative concept for the Baltic Sea pipeline. In this concept, the site of the German landfall station in Lubmin near Greifswald is repurposed and transformed into a center for international understanding. 600 meters of laid pipes are retrieved from the sea and used as building material.

Nord Stream 3 is a program of the German Federal Government for peace and international understanding. The pipes from Nord Stream 2, with a diameter of 1.153 meters, are converted into a house with 194 sleeping pods. These 194 sleeping pods are allocated each month to people from around the world via a random lottery, ensuring that every country can occupy one pod. This one-month stay, free of charge for all, aims to bring together people from all classes, cultures, religions, and nations. The result is an intercultural exchange that fosters friendships and breaks down prejudices.

On the now-unused site of the German landfall station, buildings will be converted into a large assembly hall for discussions, a foreign language school, workshops, galleries, and cultural meeting spaces. The goal is to create space for the exchange of interests and mutual input from the citizens of the global community. In discussions on climate, social, health, and economic policy issues, participants contribute their ideas, values, and guiding principles, negotiate them on equal footing, and bring new implications, inspirations, and impulses back to their home countries.

At the civil society level, this enables and shapes transformations from the bottom up, driven by an international, multicultural process of exchange, networking, and cooperation. Instead of an assembly of top diplomats and heads of state, a United Nations General Assembly of ordinary people — the citizens of the world — emerges.