The London houses to go to at Open House Festival in its last weekend

For these of us who spend our spare time on Rightmove, fawning over lovely houses or setting the worth filter effectively past our budgets, the annual Open House Festival is sort of too good to be true: an opportunity to discover different folks’s real-life houses.

Every yr, areas that are normally behind closed doorways —houses, workplaces, landmark architectural tasks—are opened to the general public. This yr’s occasion, which runs between 13 and 21 September, consists of over 800 free open days throughout London, in line with organisers Open City.

But with 800 open days, the place to begin? To my thoughts, it’s value capitalising on the extraordinary privilege of having the ability to go searching folks’s houses with out an invite.

I’ve rounded up 10 prime picks for this yr’s competition, from two RIBA House of the Year-winning design marvels to a self-build venture in Grove Park.

Here are the houses which can be open this weekend.

Crowned final yr’s RIBA House of the Year, Six Columns was designed by its architect proprietor —one of many founders of 31/44 Architects— to satisfy the altering wants of his household.

The four-bedroom home was constructed on patches of gardens acquired from neighbours. Named after the six columns that type its construction, it’s designed to maximise shared areas.

“We favored this concept that you could see every part {that a} constructing is made from, and the way which may inform our future use of that materials, or adjustment of that constructing,” stated proprietor Will Burges in a RIBA video.

“We wished the home to be brutalist within the early sense of that phrase, the place you could possibly actually really feel the woodiness of the wooden.”

Sun Rain Rooms, residence of structure follow Tonkin Liu, is proof that we must always by no means decide a property from the surface.

Behind the sensible, stucco-fronted Georgian façade, there’s an extraordinary extension, with glass partitions and a curved design, topped with a inexperienced roof.

It’s set round a patio which is reworked right into a “reflecting pool” on the contact of a button, stuffed with collected rainwater. Even the ceiling, with spherical, coffered skylights, is designed to imitate the sample of raindrops touchdown within the pool.

The townhouse has extra tips up its sleeve too. A mirrored wall within the coated outside space conceals a workshop, cooking space, potting shed, storage and deep planter.

This is a uncommon probability to see inside a brutalist icon: the Ernő Goldfinger-designed Glenkerry House, which is a part of a trio of buildings, together with the well-known Balfron Tower.

Unlike its siblings, Glenkerry House is a self-run housing cooperative, with residents managing the 14-storey “vertical village” themselves.

Whereas property costs have skyrocketed in different brutalist developments —Balfron Tower, in spite of everything, has been was luxurious flats— flats in Glenkerry House are purchased and offered via the cooperative at a reduced worth, with consumers added to a ready checklist earlier than being assigned a property.

The Twin House is nothing like its Victorian terraced neighbours. For one, it’s a rust-coloured crimson, because of its cement board cladding, with a double-gabled construction that lends it its identify.

It was constructed on a good storage plot, with the basement degree excavated and two storeys added above. It has an upside-down format, with the kitchen, residing and dealing areas on the primary ground to maximise mild, and the bedrooms on the basement and floor ground ranges.

“This design squeezes absolutely the max from a tiny footprint,” stated Kevin McCloud when the property featured on Grand Designs earlier this yr. “Proper grown-up structure on a pint-sized plot.”

Whereas most of the houses on the competition are the work of adorned architects, Charmaine McNally had “by no means picked up a hammer earlier than” when she determined to construct her own residence.

She achieved this mammoth feat with the assistance of a 14-home, female-led self-build scheme, led by self-builder and community-led regeneration marketing consultant Tim Oshodi.

Chinbrook Meadows is the third self-build scheme coordinated by the pioneering cooperative Fusions Jameen.

Formed within the mid-90s as a gaggle of African and Caribbean Londoners, it labored with a housing affiliation to coach its members to construct their very own houses. Since then, 36 homes, together with McNally’s, have been created.

McNally’s six-bedroom home and backyard and Oshodi’s personal self-built residence at 13 Nubia Way in Bromley are open to guests as a part of the competition, with McNally speaking about her expertise of self-building.

Architecture follow Caruso St John have labored on the likes of Tate Britain, the Barbican Concert Hall and Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery, which received the RIBA Stirling Prize.

Orleston Mews is an opportunity to see inside founder Peter St John’s own residence, which he designed in 1987 and remodelled in 2000.

Building on a shoestring, St John’s design incorporates salvaged supplies, together with reclaimed bricks, floorboards and two outdated dairy vans.

Today, the façade nonetheless has a contact of Frankenstein about it, half brick, half steel, with mild, ethereal interiors that overlook the backyard.

And the very best of the remaining to look out for at subsequent yr’s occasion…

Pine Heath is one among 12 modernist houses designed within the late Nineteen Sixties by Ted Levy, Benjamin and Partners.

In 2023, the home was given a complete makeover by Studio Hagen Hall, with new interiors and bespoke joinery, a reconfigured format, and drastically improved vitality effectivity.

Inside, count on heat, luxurious mid-century décor, a few of it nonetheless unique. There’s pretty pine cladding on the staircase, for instance, and a sunken seating space which appears to be like out onto the bushes.

“Open House is a superb alternative to open the doorways of Pine Heath to members of the general public,” say the architects.

“[It] allows us as an example how a delicate energy-focused refurbishment can protect and improve London’s modernist, post-war housing inventory.”

When architects Brown Urbanism took on this property, they have been clearly in search of a problem. The Triangle House is constructed on the small, triangular web site of a former MOT storage, the funds was beneath £100,000, and former planning requests to extend the constructing’s peak had been rejected.

Measuring simply 430 sq. ft, the home is organized as two multi-use areas with an inside courtyard backyard.

Rather than making an attempt to maximise floorspace by constructing upwards, the single-storey Triangle House is designed to make environment friendly use of area. Look out for intelligent options, like a mattress which slides away and a desk which is revealed when the bi-fold doorways are slid to the facet.

“Our residence could be very ambiguous and it’s not apparent what it’s from the surface, so I believe we have now quite a lot of curious locals who’re eager to see what lies behind the outer brick crust,” says architect Richard Brown.

“I hope our venture spurs folks on to push the button and tackle their very own thrilling distinctive tasks.”

Another RIBA House of the Year, the leafy, light-filled Green House is a “up to date reimagining of a home greenhouse”.

From the surface, it definitely appears to be like like one: the façade is planted with bamboo and coated with sliding polycarbonate roofing sheets, referencing the greenhouses which as soon as stood on the positioning.

Inside, Hayhurst and Co.’s design is centred round a “riad-style” atrium, which connects all of the residing areas and helps to maintain the home cool via its air flow.

With its photo voltaic panels and warmth pump, RIBA’s 2023 judges deemed it an “extraordinarily well-considered residence that’s not solely ultra-practical and architecturally thrilling, but in addition extremely revolutionary from a sustainability perspective.”

Built on a disused plot in Shepherd’s Bush and hidden behind the encircling properties, this extraordinary tin construction doesn’t look very like a home at first look.

It’s comprised of single storey “pavilions” that are organized in a horseshoe round a central courtyard.

Each comprises a single room, with areas like bogs, cabinets and stairs hidden between the hyperlinks.

“The home is a haven of tranquility and actual pleasure to stay in,” says proprietor and architect Henning Stummel, who has lived there together with his household for the previous decade. “[It] actually illustrates the facility of considerate design.”