Open House Festival

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Browse these highlights from our programme preview

Guided tour

1 Goodwins Court: 10 year Georgian restoration

historical house

Built between 1690-1720, No. 1 Goodwins Court celebrates 300 years of existence with the completion of its painstaking 10-year restoration. Part of a row of Grade II* Listed buildings within Covent Garden’s Conservation Area, it is a rare survivor of a building type reflecting the conditions of London's Georgian working classes. Goodwins Court was the inspiration for Harry Potter's Diagon Alley.

, 1690

Drop in / Guided tour

Brixton Advice Centre

community/cultural

Brixton Advice Centre is an ordinary building with an extraordinary life. The only building in Lambeth with two blue plaques, the last building squatted by Olive Morris, final home of CLR James, windows by legendary designer Jon Daniel. The oldest Advice Centre in London. Offices of the Race Today Collective. See how we are still on the Frontline of Brixton and changing lives.

No architect name, 1902

Drop in

Don't Move, Improve! - Two-up Two-down House

residence, architectural practice

The Two-Up Two-Down house is architectural practice Khan Bonshek's self build home, and winner of the Don't Move Improve 2024 Transformation Award. The house is a reworking of a mid terrace, using imaginative spatial devices to maximise the limited floor area. Double height volumes, exposed structure and the blurring of rooms combine to introduce light and create the illusion of space.

Khan Bonshek, 2018

Walking tour

Flood Meadows at Hampton Court

walk/tour

A guided walk through Home Park Water Meadows with Thames Landscape Strategy. It is the site of a wetland restoration project that has increased biodiversity and sustainability on the historic site. It is not usually open to the public.

Sir Howard Hodgkin (1932 – 2017) was one of England’s most celebrated contemporary artists. Abstracted yet allusive, apparently spontaneous but in fact highly controlled, his paintings convey feeling through gesture and colour. His former studio, converted from a nineteenth-century dairy, sits in the heart of Bloomsbury.

Guided tour

Lillington Gardens Estate

residence, walk/tour

Lillington Gardens in Pimlico, Westminster, was built from 1961 to 1971 by Darbourne & Darke. It set a new standard in high-density public housing with medium-rise structures and private gardens. Blending well with nearby Victorian surroundings, the modernist design won multiple awards and was praised by Nikolaus Pevsner as 'the most interesting recent housing in inner London'.

Darbourne and Darke, 1961

Guided tour

#Merky FC HQ, Croydon

sport

KSS were part of the team responsible for the design and delivery of the new building at Selhurst Sports Arena, Croydon the new headquarters of MERKY FC. The new building, more than just a football centre, is a community hub, providing a safe space for the community to come together and is operated by the charity Communities First Foundation on behalf of adidas. https://merkyfchq.com/

11.04 Architects, 2023

Drop in / Guided tour

National Portrait Gallery Architecture Late

gallery

Celebrating the NPG's architectural history and recent transformation by Jamie Fobert Architects, this architecture themed Late is designed to celebrate the building as a public space, highlighting the many connections to the built environment that the Gallery has – from contemporary design details that reference the local streetscape to the 400 portraits of architects in our collection.

Ewan Christian, 1896

Drop in

Peckham House

residence

Surman Weston has completed its first self-build project, Peckham House, in South London. A resilient, characterful, and experiential family home, that reflects our personalities and architectural interests.

Surman Weston, 2023

Drop in

The Corner House

residence

Designed by Langstaff Day Architects, The Corner House is a self-build, low energy sustainable CLT home on a constrained brownfield site in Stoke Newington overlooking Butterfield Green.

Langstaff Day Architects, 2024

Drop in / Guided tour

The Mission Building

housing

The British Sailors' Society Mission, 747 Commercial Road, Stepney, on the corner with Salmon Lane. A point on the black cab's knowledge on the corner of Salmon Lane . The building is 100 years old in 2024. It was used by sailors, then a hostel and now private homes. A unique building with vistas of London.

-, 1924