“Utopian city“ debuts at Middle East's largest music festival

Soundstorm’s Temporary City in Riyadh is the project with which Vision Factory wants to show how architecture and design can relate to music.

UK-based design studio Vision Factory has designed a utopian immersive “temporary city” for the fourth edition of Soundstorm, the larger music festival of the Middle East’s, which takes place from today until Saturday, December 16, in Riyadh desert, Saudi Arabia.

The studio, in collaboration with MDLBEAST, curated the “Underground” space of the festival, an area housing four stages. Vision Factory designed a multi-layered brutalist urban landscape using over 950 recycled containers. A tribute to a blend of industrial aesthetics and architectural innovation, transforming a 50,000 square-meter space into a vibrant metropolitan city of sorts.

Adorned with metal and rust, this festival area, in addition to the four distinct stages, features various passageways and doorways, as well as several gathering spaces. Containers have long been used in architecture, but never before on such a large scale within a music festival. Their modular nature has made this new form of festival architecture extremely sustainable.

Temporary Factory. Soundstorm Music Festival, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Credit Tom Carder

Temporary Factory. Soundstorm Music Festival, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Credit Tom Carder

Temporary Factory. Soundstorm Music Festival, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Credit Tom Carder

Temporary Factory. Soundstorm Music Festival, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Credit Tom Carder

Temporary Factory. Soundstorm Music Festival, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Credit Tom Carder

Temporary Factory. Soundstorm Music Festival, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Credit Tom Carder

Temporary Factory. Soundstorm Music Festival, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Credit Tom Carder

Temporary Factory. Soundstorm Music Festival, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Credit Tom Carder

Temporary Factory. Soundstorm Music Festival, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Credit Tom Carder

Temporary Factory. Soundstorm Music Festival, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Credit Tom Carder

Temporary Factory. Soundstorm Music Festival, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Credit Tom Carder