H-VAC was featured in the Architects' Journal in a piece written by Jon Astbury.
There is an entire genre of film and video game that is conjured by the humble ventilation duct: from John McClane to Batman or even Alien, the uses of these hidden routes have imbued them with a sense of espionage and the uncanny, an unsurveilled means of bypassing a structure’s boundaries, albeit one that has since proven too small for aspiring thieves and spies. Architecture has, of course, not been immune to this. Although manifested more commonly in the colourful pipework of hi-tech or oddities like Ludwig Leo’s Pink Pipe in Berlin, the allure of the vent, ducting and pipework, remains.
‘We started seeing them as rooms and corridors,’ says Theo Molloy of architecture and design trio Pup, referring to the sculptural twisting duct forms and plant units that crown countless office structures in London. It was these forms that inspired Molloy, Chloë Leen and Steve Wilkinson’s winning design for a provocative ‘Antepavilion’ in Hoxton: the H-VAC.
The competition, launched by The Architecture Foundation and supported by developer Shiva, is the first in what will become an annual series, seeking to explore and provoke alternative ways of living in the city through projects by emerging designers. PUP, chosen from 128 entries, were invited to use Shiva’s Columbia Wharf site – a warehouse building now occupied by offices and artists’ studios – as a workshop to construct the pavilion that would sit on the roof.
