Kowloon Ventilation Building, Hong Kong. For the Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway Corporation (MTRC), 1993-1995. A ventilation building for the Kowloon Station on Tung Chung Line.

The ventilation building provided air to the station and the tunnel under the harbour, had a sea-water intake for cooling, and also acted as an electricity substation and emergency evacuation route. The structure was located in a public park, so the challenge of locating a utilitarian structure into such a public space required as much focus as the operational requirements. In the final design only a third of the building was visible with the remainder buried in an excavated pit that extended twenty metres down to the rail tunnels. Above ground was a low-cost reinforced-concrete building finished with grey metal cladding and yellow and grey tiles. The shape was designed as a 'dynamic swooping form' with the building profile changing from different vantage points. The design of the building also mirrored the graphic typology of the Kowloon Station concourse roof so that the two buildings together formed a physical and visual relationship. The commission mirrored Terry Farrell's first built scheme, the now-listed Blackwall Tunnel Ventilation Towers, 1964.