Antepavilion | PUP architects

Designed and built by upcoming architecture firm, PUP Architects, this year's Antepavilion was selected from 128 proposals in a competition organised by the Architecture Foundation and sponsored by Shiva Ltd.

The competition brief called for proposals that explored alternative ways of living in the city and engaged with issues of sustainability and recycling. PUP's design is a playful subversion of planning legislation, exploiting loopholes for mechanical rooftop equipment to be built without planning permission.

Covertly extrovert, the snaking linear form is functional yet surprisingly sculptural and is clad in silver shingles cut from reject drinks carton material printed roll.  The Antepavilion has been built by PUP with the assistance of carpenters and a team of volunteers, and technical support from structural engineers, AKTii.

PUP Architects said: “While permitted development exists for large scale infrastructural roof installations, little challenge has been made for other viable and productive uses for rooftops. By subverting the form of the permitted and giving it a non-standard use, we hope to bring into question this order of priorities.”

Russell Gray, Director of Shiva Ltd said: "We are delighted to sponsor an initiative to encourage young and emerging architects, designers and artists with an appetite for hands-on construction, freed of the oppressive web of aesthetic, regulatory and commercial constraints that govern most urban construction projects."

Ellis Woodman, Director of The Architecture Foundation said: “Supporting emerging practices has always been central to The Architecture Foundation’s mission so we were delighted that Shiva invited us to help formulate the first Antepavilion competition.  We are looking forward to the annual commission developing into a significant event in the architectural calendar and an important stepping stone for a generation of emerging architects.”

The Antepavilion will be open to the public on the weekend of the 5th and 6th of August. Visitors should ring the buzzers at Hoxton Docks for access. It will then be open again on the 16th and 17th of September during London’s Open House weekend.