The Ring

Project: The Ring
Architect: Piovenefabi

Programme

In the tradition of the Horst Festival, each year the organisers invite an architectural firm to design one of the dance stages, which will be used both for the three days of the festival and for everyday use in the Asiat public park, built on the ruins of the former Asiat military base. In recent years, and following the success of certain pavilions, the organisers have developed the ambition to design stages lasting more than a year, and in any case with a circular logic of replacement.

The Ring pavilion is a structure built entirely from reused materials. The old roof on the plot was dismantled and the metal beams were reused to build the new structure of the Horst festival pavilion. After the festival, the structure became a playground for the children of the school on the site, with a sports area for visitors.

About: The Ring is a crown of light floating above the dancers.
An open decagonal perimeter is superimposed on a larger dance arena, bounded by existing graffiti walls, a space of hidden urbanity that has been reopened for the festival.
Constructed from reused metal beams from the dismantling of a pre-existing shelter, The Ring supports a wall of sound, organises an architecture of lights and sprays smoke over the crowd, becoming a de facto piece of stage infrastructure.
Part backdrop, part foreground, part surrounding perimeter, part object of contemplation, once the festival is over the dance floor is transformed into a colourful sports field with a running track, basketball court, mini football pitch, podiums and skateboarding facilities, celebrating urban life in Asiat Park.
This project, we believe, perfectly embodies and explains our research in terms of the circular economy: the building material in this case is already on the site, it is deployed and recomposed in a new form. Based on the aforementioned premises, which were part of the specifications, we decided to take the idea of circular reuse of materials to the extreme.