Stone Island Turned a Disused Swimming Pool Into a Standout Live Experience
There’s something about brutalist architecture serving as a compelling backdrop for live electronic music. Whether it’s the shadowy lobbies of Kraków’s Hotel Forum at Unsound Festival, or the cavernous concrete dancefloor at Tbilisi’s Bassiani - the starkness of space brings an intensity to the sound that envelops it.
Milan is more known for its sprawling Italo-modernist villas and Gothic cathedrals rather than as a Brutalist hub, but the city holds a few exceptions. Take Via Achille Maiocchi 8 - originally an industrial site, and later a gym and then a swimming pool, it’s a space where dense concrete pillars intersect across multiple storeys.
During Milan Design Week 2026, Stone Island took on the site to transform it into a live backdrop for music, panel discussions and a showroom. Built in collaboration with Milan-based studio NM3, the space made use of the concrete shell of a former swimming pool to flip the notion of a stage into a pit. Rather than elevating the performer above the audience, the audience was invited to watch the sets unfold beneath them on the swimming pool floor.
This was powerfully felt during the surprise opening performance with artist James Blake; the synth chords of tracks including ‘Life Round Here’ reverberating upwards to the audience, channelled through the custom-built speakers of the Friendly Pressure: Studio One sound system.
Speaking to Wallpaper, NM3 said their design ethos reflects that of the brand, describing a “mutual attention to detail in design” together with a commitment to research, “particularly in the exploration of materials and finishes”. To L’Officiel, the studio further elaborated their approach; “elements are arranged in a symmetrical way, without a decorative design, following the only possible logic: maximising the functionality of the space to allow people to use it simultaneously.”
This was noted in the carefully integrated elements present. A wire cage looped across the site’s concrete tiers, which infused the space with a contained intensity - open enough to move through and view from different levels, but intimate enough that the crowd still felt held inside one shared atmosphere. Meanwhile, a suspended 4x8 metre LED platform acted more like a technological ceiling than a traditional stage screen, projecting a loop of art by Vittorio Maria Dal Maso throughout the week.
After Blake’s inaugural set, the week was completed with panel talks by Lyst and NM3, and conversational moments including Highsnobiety editor Christopher Jacques Morency, writer Jake Woolf and creative director Juliana Salazar contributing to discussions.
The space was a living reflection of the theme of our curatorial programme in Milan Design Week at Dropcity, ‘The Design of Collective Experience’, which looked at architecture’s role in shaping our experience of culture. In this disused swimming pool, Stone Island reminded us that strong spatial design doesn’t just hold an event, but shapes the whole experience itself.
