How Pizza 4Ps is Embracing the Future of Sustainable HVAC Design

Pizza 4Ps is an award-winning restaurant group in Vietnam.

The franchise has a deep respect for local context and sustainability, especially when it comes to sourcing ingredients. They produce their own cheese, herbs and vegetables, and have even begun to cultivate their own compost driven farms to recycle food waste.

Aesthetically, Pizza 4Ps embodies the very best of contemporary Vietnam, a casual but classy dining experience with industrially designed spaces and a menu to die for.

The restaurant first opened its doors in Ho Chi Minh City, expanding quickly into a national group with several outlets. As a brand that prides itself on sustainability, admirable CSR activities and contemporary design, Euro Air Southeast Asia was a perfect fit for Pizza 4P’s newest restaurant in Hai Phong.

“We always want to build something green or close to nature, something sustainable, and Euro Air fit right on that target,” says Kyohei Takahashi, Project Manager with Takashi Niwa Architects, the firm behind Pizza 4P’s new Hai Phong location. 

“We wanted to make sure that our design for the new venue lived up to Pizza 4P’s sustainable ethos. Of course, the new Hai Phong location is inside of a mall, so incorporating a small farm or garden wasn’t possible.” Instead, Takahashi and his team used reclaimed local materials like chain and iron for all of the restaurant’s lighting and fixtures. This was both an homage to Hai Phong’s history as a major port city, and a way to reduce the project’s carbon footprint.

But when the time came to install an up to date ventilation system, the Takashi Niwa team ran into a problem. Traditional air distribution systems rely on heavy galvanized steel ducts that are anything but eco-friendly, and far from cost-effective. Mr Takahashi and his team were in search of a greener, more futureproof solution.  

That’s when they discovered Euro Air.

Read More: Euro Air & The Future of Sustainable HVAC Design

A Smarter HVAC Solution

“A year ago we invited the Euro Air team to come to our office and present their products to our firm,” Takahashi says. “It was the first time I’d heard of Euro Air and the first time I’d heard anything about textile ducting. Before that meeting, I never would’ve imagined anything like it.”

Euro Air’s textile ducts distribute air evenly throughout an indoor space. Air flows through the duct and escapes through the permeable surface of the textile material. Directional flow controlling baffles can be added to meet the bespoke demands of any indoor environment. The end result is a ventilation system that’s completely free from drafts and dead zones.

Plus, the permeable textile material prevents condensation, eliminating the build-up of harmful bacteria and microorganisms. Since the whole system is made of lightweight textiles, it's incredibly simple to take down, clean and reinstall, promoting better atmospheric health and hygiene.

“It was a completely new idea with striking design potential,” says Takahashi. “Plus, it offered exactly the kind of sustainable alternative to traditional steel ducts that we were looking for.”

For Euro Air, environmental sustainability is much more than just a buzzword. In fact, Euro Air provides the world’s only Cradle to Cradle certified textile duct, CradleSox.

Cradle to Cradle Certification recognizes safer, more sustainable products made for the circular economy. Cradle to Cradle certification encourages manufacturers to carefully consider each material that goes into a product, as well as every resource used in the production process. The ultimate goal behind Cradle to Cradle certified products is to be 100% recyclable.

In keeping with that goal, every stitch and fibre of Euro Air’s textile solutions is engineered with environmental impact reduction in mind. Euro Air is fiercely committed to conserving resources, reducing its carbon footprint, and recycling its raw materials—all in the name of a better climate, indoors and out.

Read More: Euro Air's Textile Ducting Product Guide 2021

But for the architects and designers behind Pizza 4Ps latest venue, the benefits of Euro Air’s textile ducting didn’t stop there.

Bespoke Benefits for any Build

“One of textile ducting’s strong points is ease-of-installation, it only takes a day or two to set up. The Euro Air sales manager even showed me how to install it myself. Even I could manage it, and I don’t know anything about construction, it’s just that simple,” says Mr Takahashi.

Textile ducting’s simple, modular design and intuitive set up saved Takashi Niwa Architects 70% on installation times and overhead costs, making it faster, cheaper and all-around easier to install than a traditional air distribution system.

“And the ducts’ modular design is useful for more than just speeding up installation,” Takahashi adds.

“We originally planned on using two different sizes of duct to distribute air through the 250 square meter restaurant, one larger size for a wider space and a separate smaller one for a more enclosed area. We decided having two different sizes wouldn’t look as nice, so we worked with Euro Air to integrate the two ducts into a single uniform design. Now we have just one, straight, simple, beautiful textile duct that’s all the same size and level.”

As Mr Takahashi notes, “textile ducting is fantastic from a design standpoint, especially for helping conceal all of the messy electrical cables, pipes and ducts that cluttered up our site. All of that is now hidden behind the flexible surface of the duct.”

Of course, with textile ducting, you can also create something much more decorative too. “Being able to customize the colour, pattern and design of the textile material is great, and of course something you can’t do with traditional steel ducting without incurring any extra costs. I’m very excited to explore those options in the future,” says Mr Takahashi.

Euro Air had one last major appeal for Takashi Niwa Architects, a factor that Kyohei Takahashi describes best:

“Textile ducting is something totally new, it defies all expectations about what ducting can or should look like. When you first see textile ducts you’d never imagine that they have anything to do with air-con. As architects and designers, it’s very important for us to constantly be trying out new materials and innovative products, so we were thrilled to explore this new material in our project. Of course, there’s always some risk trying out new products, but if you only ever use the same safe and familiar materials you’ll never learn anything new. It’s that slight element of risk, of innovation that makes our work as architects and designers so exciting.”