With enorm, the magazine for social change, Sally Below, as guest editor-in-chief, has been able to realise her idea of developing an issue about cities for professionals as well as interested urban citizens. The first enorm stadt was published in July 2017.

About the content:

Urban development is considered the task of politics and administration. But residents, businesses or communities of interest also follow their own strategies to influence their living environment. Sally Below asks about urban guiding principles and goals between political mandate and initiative, sheds light on current developments and presents visions, working methods and projects. enorm stadt strolls through Hamburg’s new neighbourhoods, talks to representatives of the cities of Arnsberg, Bremen, Delitzsch, Mannheim and Nuremberg, talks about Olympic applications and the perpetuation of urban movements, shows how an initiative is changing Dessau, asks what has become of the theses on the “creative city” and where the idea of the smart city stands today.

With contributions by:

Doris Kleilein, Franziska Eidner, Jochen Sandner, Moritz Henning, Wolfgang Maennig, Gary Hustwit, Robert Kaltenbrunner, Matthew Griffin, Kai Vöckler, Britta Jürgens, Andreas Foidl, Christian Holl, Brigitte Hartwig und Sally Below, Jan Gehl, Olaf Bartels, Hans-Herrmann Albers, Martin Schwegmann, Hilmar Poganatz, Nico Paech and Marius Rommel, Michael LaFond and Larisa Tsvetkova, Johannes Novy

Art direction: Kai Kullen. Deputy editor-in-chief: Moritz Henning

Over the course of a year, a new space for the communication of architecture was created in the Sarotti-Höfe in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Sally Below and architect Volker Halbach developed a concept for the transformation and implemented it together with architects from all over Germany in three workshops that built on each other.

The photographic documentation illustrates both the transformation phases and the workshop situations and allows the individual project phases to be understood in detail. Between the pictures and explanations, there are repeated quotations from architects that convey very individual impressions of the process.

Sally Below was responsible for the concept and content of the bilingual booklet, the design was done by the colleagues from BÜROHALLO. It was published in September 2016.

For almost twenty years, more than 300 hectares of former military land in the Bavarian capital have been and are being developed into new residential and urban quarters. Sally Below and her team were responsible for the conception and editing of a 160-page publication on this topic.

In addition to the presentation of eight development areas with their special features, the history of the barracks is also addressed, ecological issues are discussed and an insight into the process of conversion is given. Munich’s experience with the instrument of urban development measures and the development of the so-called “Münchner Weg” are also comprehensively presented.

A walk-talk with Prof. Christiane Thalgott and Dr. Theo Waigel provides an insight into the beginnings of the development of the conversion areas and the coordination with the federal government at the time: “Like winning the lottery” is the conclusion of the two key participants.

City of Munich, Department for Urban Planning and Building Regulations (ed.): Von der Kaserne zum Stadtquartier. Munich, 2013

The publication can be downloaded here.

In 2014, Sally Below and Reiner Schmidt published the book „Auf dem Weg zur Stadt als Campus“ “Towards a City as Campus”. City as Campus stands for activating, knowledge-based urban development. The book presents projects by city makers and universities that were implemented together with municipalities, educational and cultural institutions, initiatives, housing companies as well as actors from the business community.

The settings are primarily small and medium-sized towns as well as polycentric regions. The actors cultivate the interplay between “established” and “creative” city makers across departmental boundaries.

With practical examples from Bernburg, Bochum, Dessau, Helmstedt, Merseburg, Offenbach, contributions by Ute Burkhardt-Bodenwinkler, Christopher Dell, Alexandra den Heijer, Christian Huttenloher, Martin Kohler, Mark Michaeli and Nadja Häupl, Lorenz Flatt and Andreas Warmbein with Caro Plath, Brigitte Hartwig, Sven Sappelt, Lars Tata, Aleksandar Turuntas and Hanka Haschke, Kai Vöckler and Heiner Blum.

Interviews with Frauke Burgdorff, Ulrike Hatzer, Ulrich Hatzfeld, Holger Köhncke and Hilmar von Lojewski, among others

224 pages with numerous illustrations

Below, S., Schmidt, R. (eds.). On the way to the city as campus. Berlin: Jovis Verlag, 2014

„Auf dem Weg zur Stadt als Campus“ at Jovis

The German contribution Reduce / Reuse / Recycle – Resource Architektur to the 13th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice propagated a pragmatic and affirmative attitude towards dealing with existing buildings. The energies and potentials stored in the building fabric – including the substantive, aesthetic, cultural, social and historical ones – must be reassessed.

A successful model for this could be the revalorisation of waste into valuable raw material, as the environmental movement has succeeded in doing with its most internationally successful slogan, the 3 Rs: Reduce / Reuse / Recycle. Could this ‘waste hierarchy’, which ranks reduction and avoidance before reuse and recycling, be a new approach to dealing with existing buildings? This was the question posed by the exhibition – in content and design.

The book Reduce / Reuse / Recycle – Resource Architektur delved into the exhibition themes, showed numerous examples from practice and sorted them into the newly created ‘hierarchy system’. Sally Below developed the contents of the publication with Muck Petzet, Florian Heilmeyer and Franziska Eidner and was responsible for the editing with her team.

Petzet, M., Heilmeyer, F. (eds.): Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2010

Reduce Reuse Recycle at Hatje Cantz

“Wanted: New thoughts and approaches for Munich’s urban development. Sought after: young players from architecture, planning and other disciplines” – this was the beginning of the call for forward-looking ideas for Munich issued by the Bavarian state capital as part of OPEN SCALE. In the run-up, the Munich Department of Urban Planning and Building Regulations had commissioned Sally Below and her office sbca with the conception, communication and coordination of this pilot project of the National Urban Development Policy as part of the application process.

OPEN SCALE was an experiment – a competition of ideas without specifications in terms of theme or scale. Everyone was curious about the response – and surprised by the great popularity as well as the quality and diversity of the ideas. Fifty young, interdisciplinary teams – a total of 219 participants – from the Munich Metropolitan Region applied. Seven entries were selected by a prominent jury and continued to work on their ideas with representatives of the city administration and external experts.

The magazine on the ideas competition presented the concepts, ideas and the Munich residents behind them and shed light on the context in which these proposals were submitted and presented.

With the 50th anniversary of the Interbau 1957 in Berlin’s Hansaviertel and the 20th anniversary of the International Building Exhibition 1987, 2007 marked two events that were equally groundbreaking for the development of Berlin after the war. Both exemplify the socio-political positions and urban design approaches of their time. But which solutions survive the test of time? Which results can be used in the long term? And how should we think of IBA today? With its potential, Berlin has the opportunity to redefine itself as a place of global innovation, production and control processes. There is enough space for experimentation, for example on the site of Tempelhof Airport. So is it time for a new building exhibition? The book and the preceding series of events sought answers to these questions.

This book was written as a follow-up to a discussion series at the Berlin Münzsalon, initiated and conducted by Sally Below, Moritz Henning and Heike Oevermann.

With positions by: Markus Bader, Sally Below, Michael Braum, Werner Durth, Peter Ebner, Oliver Frey, Uli Hellweg, Moritz Henning, Robert Kaltenbrunner, Harald Kraft, Regula Lüscher, Engelbert Lütke Daldrup, Ralf Metal, Erhart Pfotenhauer, Daniela Riedel, Matthias Sauerbruch, Günter Schlusche, Christiane Scholz, Oliver Schwedes, Irene Wiese-von Ofen / Edited by: Sally Below, Moritz Henning and Heike Oevermann

Below, S., Henning, M., Oevermann, H. (eds.): Die Berliner Bauausstellungen – Wegweiser in die Zukunft? Berlin: Regioverlag, 2007