Crowded Market: DVS1 and architects Leopold Banchini and Giona Bierens on reimagining festival dancefloors

At this year’s edition of Horst Arts & Music, DVS1 teamed up with architects Leopold Banchini and Giona Bierens to build Dark Skies – a semi-permanent stage structure that used sound-first architecture to create a more immersive, communal crowd experience. Here, they discuss the world-building potential of festivals, and how Horst prioritises innovation and community through experimental stage design.

There’s beauty in the act of repurposing buildings as club spaces – a tangible embodiment of club culture’s utopian potential. It allows us to commune in places built for activities antithetical to our joy: resisting the commodification of culture in an ex-bank, or creating a sanctuary for persecuted groups in a former police station. Born out of the anti-capitalist impulse to reclaim space, it’s been a central practice throughout clubbing history – think Paradise Garage, De School, Printworks. 

Occupying repurposed spaces also plays a significant role in our experience. The novelty of partying at an abandoned military site (such as Asiat Park – home of Belgian arts and music festival, Horst), makes for a much more visceral one than in a purpose-built club, devoid of context. But, there are limitations – namely having to work within the bounds of a less-than-ideal environment to cultivate immersive experiences. 

Thankfully, there are artists for whom these limitations present an opportunity for innovation. Enter Swiss architects Leopold Banchini and Giona Bierens de Haan, and US DJ, producer and sound system builder Zak Khutoretsky, a.k.a. DVS1. Brought together by a shared interest in sound experience, and mobilised by the brief to design a stage at this year’s Horst festival, they began designing Dark Skies – a 30-meter overhead structure made up of 116 top speakers and 58 subwoofers. The concept behind the ambitious design is to work to-scale to minimise sound degradation as it travels throughout the crowd. Under Dark Skies, no matter where the audience member stands in relation to the DJ booth, they will experience the sound in the exact same capacity as any one of their fellow dancers. 

Designing purpose-built temporary constructions brings the opportunity (and challenge) to define one’s own priorities. “In terms of architecture, it’s the buildings built by Roman emperors or Egyptian pharaohs that go down in history”, Leopold explains. “Our focus is creating the most amazing, strongest spaces possible within very minimal means.” The project is a unique example of sound-first architecture – the juncture at which each collaborator’s respective discipline meets. Finding innovative ways to contribute to dance music’s ecosystem is the throughline of DVS1’s work, whether in his building of custom sound systems via Wall of Sound, or addressing the pay gap between DJs and producers via Aslice. The work of Leopold and Giano, on the other hand, prioritises expressionism over functionalism and creativity over commercial gain. By subverting the traditions of architectural practice – here, also by beginning with sound instead of vision – their work promotes new ways of being together. 

What better opportunity for the staging of different realities than a music festival? At their most radical, festivals can emulate a small township. Attendees choose to step out of their day-to-day realities to try out an alternative one with different modes of co-existing with people and their surroundings. For DVS1, “festivals can be revolutionary. But, it’s not always the case. It can only happen if the vision is there. Horst is an example which you don’t see very often. They take risks to develop their project, instead of lining their pockets.”

Founded as an urban renewal initiative, Horst’s project extends much further than the festival’s three days. It’s a sustained effort to engage with the site and the ecosystems that surround it. Instead of simply occupying the land for a week every year, projects throughout the year engage the local community to promote the preservation of the natural environment. Horst Atelier is a four-week programme that takes place in the build-up to the festival. Over 700 volunteers produce the programme from installing art exhibitions to building roof coverings, collaborating across disciplines to test out new ways of working together. From crafting wooden structures to the very final touches, Dark Skies was constructed entirely collaboratively by Atelier participants. “For me, the building phase is the most utopian part”, Leopold affirms. “You see established artists collaborate with emerging architects or designers. There are no hierarchies or pressures to prioritise commercial gain.”

For DVS1, this is the epitome of festivals’ world-building potential. “Atelier has the feel of a little village. People are making new connections, eating together, creating something together. A lot of people who come to festivals won’t be able to conceive the work that has gone into it. Here festivalgoers can literally see the screws they put in.”

The collaborative production process is integral to Horst’s mission to strengthen community around the festival. But for those simply experiencing the product, the impact is just as crucial. “We were afraid that a 3000-cap dancefloor would compromise the social interaction between dancers and the DJ”, says Horst co-director Matthias Staelens. But by ensuring that each crowd member has an equally immersive experience, Dark Skies presents a solution to the challenge of maintaining intimacy and connection in big stages. “We found ways to contain the energy of the dancefloor as if with a physical boundary”.

The current landscape within which live underground dance music events operate, there are factors that impede festivals’ ability to prioritise anything other than generating revenue. With many struggling to shift presale tickets since Covid, the advance cash flow they have previously relied on no longer exists. The kind of experimentation we see in Dark Skies is a risk taken in an already precarious set of resources. Its success is the pay-off of Horst’s seven-year commitment to a mission prioritising social value, and the loyal cohort of returnees that engage with it.

Through centering artistic experimentation, prioritising sound experience and facilitating non-hierarchical collaboration, Dark Skies, Atelier and Horst are the embodiment of author and poet Hakim Bey’s Temporary Autonomous Zones – the utopias created in moments of anarchy. “We use architecture as a trojan horse,” Giona affirms. “A way to open shutters in peoples’ minds.”