Line up: London’s Open House weekend is upon us

Make a beeline; the capital's favourite annual architecture open-doors celebration is back. London Open House 2015 launches this weekend and it promises to be as exciting as ever. 

Many of the city's much loved buildings are still on the list - cue the Maggie's Centre, Trellick Tower and the Siobhan Davies Studios - but there's also over 160 brand new buildings added this year to the Open House roaster. 

Newcomers such as the RIBA award winners The Foundry in Vauxhall by Architecture00 and Duggan Morris' Ortus learning centre, as well as the BT Tower (which is about to celebrate its 50th birthday) will certainly be popular destinations for the capital's discerning architecture tourist. However a wealth of houses and housing complexes of all scales and types are a definite highlight of 2015, ready to offer inspiration: from back yard extensions to housing for the over-60s and boutique developments, this year's line up has it all. 

At the same time, an ambitious ongoing project, the Peckham Coal Line - a proposal to create an elevated urban park using the old coal sidings to link Queens Road Peckham with Rye Lane with the potential to become London's own High Line - is also here to highlight the capital's exciting future. During the weekend there will be guided walks of the route and several events linked to the project. 

Here, we highlight some of the best projects to visit this weekend. 

About to celebrate its 50th birthday, the BT tower has been an iconic feature on the London skyline since 1965. The working tower still relays telephone and broadcasting information and this is a rare opportunity for visitors to visit the restaurant on the famous revolving 34th floor.

The clever arrangement of four courtyards on an infill site in Forest Hill has allowed Dallas Pierce Quintero Architects to design a completely private, but light-filled house without blocking daylight from neighbouring houses.

The open-plan, spacious design is a stark contrast to the sunken exterior that at first glance appears to be the garage of the neighbouring house. The combination of dark materials including saw tooth brickwork, corrugated steel panelling and black, profiled cement sheets transforms the simple elevation into an interesting and textured façade. 

Intended for older residents, the houses are situated around a sociable communal garden and each also have a private courtyard garden. With large windows and tall chimneys, the single-storey Courtyard Houses are a modern twist on the quaint cottagey almshouses dotted around London and are proof that social housing needn’t compromise on style or quality. 

Clad in timber, the houses sit lightly in their surroundings, grouped around a large shared courtyard that tackles the problem of much coveted garden space in London. Each house also has its own private balcony overlooking the courtyard. 

HUT Architects have transformed the top floor of an Italianate villa-style block of apartments into an unexpectedly minimal penthouse that celebrates simplicity using concrete, glass, steel and recycled timber as its primary materials. 

Echlin Architects are transforming three haphazardly joined buildings into one coherent space separated by a light-capturing courtyard. At the rear, two smaller houses are being rebuilt in a mews style, sensitive to the surrounding properties. Kenure House is an excellent lesson in joining individual styles in a rational manner and is due to be completed not long after Open House weekend.

The 2012 Olympics might be over but the legacy is most certainly lasting thanks to the architectural medals left behind by a team of top architects. Hopkins Architects were inspired by the very sport the velodrome was designed to host and responded to the unrivalled and meticulous engineering of the bicycle to create a refined and highly efficient velodrome clad in a Red Cedar timber. The parabolic-curved, 6000-seater arena was designed to show from the outside the shape of the track inside.

Duggan Morris designed this 3 storey brick building as an educative and social space for Maudsley Charity, a charity set up to support learning in mental healthcare. The driving force behind the design was the need to create an interactive and multifunctional space where visitors could learn across several interconnected split-level spaces as well as socialise with the wider community in an open plan, inviting café space.

The fading brickwork allows the centre to blend in seamlessly with its London landscape and the well-proportioned, grid-like form of the concrete and brick building is a contemporary and innovative lesson in how to respect history and the neighbouring Georgian structures

As its name suggests, a palette of raw materials, including concrete, brick, timber, metal and perhaps most importantly light, has been used to transform a tired Victorian property in south-east London into the Raw House.

Architecture 00 has joined a former shoe polish factory with a new building that uses untreated wood, concrete, raw brickwork and large windows to create an open plan and contemporary, collective space.

The main driving force behind the design was to provide a sense of community for the locals and the shared café, allotments and bee-keeping area, together with transparent meeting rooms create a friendly and inclusive civic centre.

INFORMATION

Open House London takes place on the 19 & 20 September 2015