Love Bubbles
intimate and atmospheric wellness and love experiences
Love Bubbles is a 21-hour love and wellness experience for lovers, based in the Dutch Achterhoek. The design of the to-be-built Steltenberg shelters three new Bubbles and was made at the request of the founders. The text below, floating between poetry and argumentation, takes you on a journey through the landscape, the architecture and each of the three Bubbles.
Through the unrestrained, proliferating landscape of the Achterhoek, the black Steltenberg - an archetypal local building - reveals itself between the high grasses, laurel and shrubs. The raw, dark materials reveal little. Expectations creep into your mind. You descend a path, past the stairways, that leads to a closed facade. This reveals a heavy hidden door, which opens with a light squeak.
When you enter, there is a lot of darkness and your expectations play an even stronger role. You look around and you will be surprised. You briefly catch a glimpse of a pink-purple-red world to your left, which you desire to touch, to feel... It is soft, warm and feels familiar yet exciting. A poignant contrast of softness and concealment. The hallway to your right is long, cool and echoing. Orange-yellow lamps give warmth to the cold discovery and draw you in. Which way are you going? Gaia, or Odin...
Gaia
Gaia is the primaeval mother - the earth - which arose out of the chaos at the beginning of things. Gaia is all about surrender.
A warm glow, a slightly sweet scent and a silky touch draw your attention. An indescribable déjà vu stimulates strong associations with an unknown memory. Unprecedented tenderness creeps over your body. Briefly, you catch a glimpse of a cool, hard world full of knowledge and mastery. It is a stark contrast to your adventure, the sultry and the warm. Silk cloths caress your arm hair. Wrapped in an embrace, you enter a world of safety and love. Far away from everything that can hurt, from impurities and shame. Gaia is your surrender. You show your pure vulnerability, without concealment, stripped of shields and erected walls.
A red thread has always connected the two of you. Sometimes delicate like silk, sometimes strong like cotton. When textiles cross, your threads entangle and connect into unity.
What are you leaving behind? The orange-red flames take what you no longer need, to never touch again. What you allow - in your surrender - you take into your bubble.
A sluggish cloud of freedom carries you to a discovery of a seeming infinity of heavy-hanging canvases. There where it seems to be getting dark is a latch, a door, a doorway to the capsule of your devotion and loyalty. The multitude of envelopment, warmth and softness relieves you of any discomfort...
Odin
Odin is the god of knowledge, wisdom, battle, war, the afterlife, magic, medicine and runic writing. Odin is all about mastery.
The entrance is dark. Expectations play an even stronger role. You look, you're amazed, you're amazed. You briefly catch a glimpse of a pink-purple-red world. A world you want to touch, feel with your fingertips. The textile flows through your hands. It is soft and warm, but feels familiar, yet exciting. As quickly as it came, it disappears, like a dream that slips away on waking. Your way requires mastery. A poignant contrast to that soft tenderness from the lost dream. This path only opens when you are ready. It's a cool, long, echoing alley. Orange-yellow light gives warmth to the cold discovery. The depth sucks you in.
You say farewell to the not-necessary, to discover your mastery: the material - shoes, watches and telephones - and immaterial - expectations, reproaches and limitations -. Full of excitement, you express your masterly hopes and desires, to share knowledge and skills. Like a caterpillar, Odin is your cocoon, in which you will transform into a master.
The heavy door opens in front of you... The first moment reveals little to you. Cool blue feel and see. Light menthol and fresh eucalyptus stimulate your sense of smell. Your bare feet are slightly poked by the gravel. The door closes and a new ambience opens, where rampant grass and Scottish Highlanders dominate the tranquillity. The space is open and conceals little. It forms a free playing field for your own mastery, no limitations, no boundaries. A smooth foam bed embodies the freedom to realize your wildest dreams. Fragrant oil, hard scrub, cold snow and warm stones are the tools to let off steam and challenge each other. Childish play mingled with adult desires. You talk, stripped of emotional resistance, to discover your wishes and limits together.
Showering is the pure sensation of freedom. Odin looks out over the meadow while you enjoy your partner's anvil. The sauna connects the hot and cold. The ice bath challenges you to push your limits. Trust and relax, enjoy masterfully.
The bed is for late at night when all knowledge is shared, when lust is lived, and when experiences are honoured. When nothing is hidden anymore and when you have found your own and each other's mastery.
Odin embodies knowledge and wisdom. Norse mythology strongly associates Odin with the masculine, while he mastered qualities then reserved only for women, such as sorcery and magic. Odin forms the masculinity of everyone, every gender. Odin is your playground, your temple. Your knowledge builds the Cairns with stacked stones. Play and share your wisdom from the depths of your brain, heart and soul. Not in response to a question, but the knowledge you want to share.
Every touch with Odin goes through the marrow, tingling up your spine, from your toes to your skull. It touches and connects. Takes you on to your next destination to enjoy open, strong and delighted together.
Diamond
After wandering for years, without getting lost, you have found each other. Your paths have crossed. Past or with and sometimes against, but ultimately destined for each other. Here you stand, before your golden marriage. You know what's coming, but your heart still races. Your partner squeezes your sweaty hand but doesn't look at you and swallows. Your intertwined fingers are slipping apart. You part ways to be reunited, forever. In your mind, you float quickly past your time together: the memorable is interspersed with ordinary days and meaningless events, which you yourself gave meaning to. You dream further away, until you blink and come back. At your feet are the twelve steps, the road to ecstasy, bringing you back together. You want fast but go slow. You step the last step, onto the platform. Touching each other feels like the first time. Heat flows through your body. Ratio and time disappear. You hold the key to the golden marriage. To an end to duality. Not the masculine or the feminine, but a genderless fusion. You look at each other. Who will open the door, you or me? When the door opens slowly...
The dark turns into light. The sun shines, light reflects and is broken into hundreds of fragments. Little rainbows form patterns of reality in decay. Diamond is the pot of gold, at the end of much and the beginning of everything. Everything floats, nothing is subject to gravity. With force, you open the large sliding doors to pull in a little outside. The velvet curtains begin to dance in the wind.
In the heart of the rainbow floats a cloud on which you land. It dances like a ship on the calm ocean. You crawl into the heart of the highest attainable. The scent of amber and musk triggers a multitude of hormones and memories. You are embroiled in euphoria, undisturbed in trance, lifted by love. The light gets bigger, brighter and whiter, while you become smaller, or your environment is growing. You float but fall, but nothing stops you. Perspective crumples and expires. Colours turn, a vortex becomes a hurricane, with you in the eye, in the heart. Lifted by ecstasy, naked against each other, without end and beginning. You want closer, but you can't. Nails scratch your skin, but you feel them all over your body. You feel each other endlessly. Gentle explosions of tenderness, goosebumps, swallowing. Your hands tremble, relaxation in tension.
Only momentarily tired, you lie in each other's arms, staring at the ceiling. An infinite bath is the new ecstasy of your adventure. You float in each other's arms on the surface of the blue water. The rough landscape is a composition of tall grasses, dark green shrubs, ancient oaks and a boundless horizon.
Cooled, you crawl into the sauna. It forms a desert in the oasis. The heat presses, yellowing stimulates and refractions break the light. Water vapour moves like an illusion, surrealism takes over, heat mirrors the colder air. La Fata Morgana bends reality into unprecedented perspectives.
You discover what is written in the stars, but what you cannot see with the naked eye. Diamond is a lens, a magnifying glass and an eye-opener. The supernatural is reality. Lightly disoriented, you experience intense relief in your merging. Diamond is a soul delight, magic and ecstasy.
Project information
Location: Lochem, the Netherlands
Client: Love Bubbles
Year: 2022-2023
Scope: architecture, interior, branding, marketing, copywriting
Contributors: Studio Jorn Beltman & MNDAY
Team: Jorn Beltman, Moon Kuijper