Every year the transition from summer to autumn means one thing for architecture enthusiasts in the Capital: Open House.

The annual festival celebrates the best architecture the City has to offer in every London neighbourhood. It allows access to places that are not normally open to the public, providing a rare glimpse into life behind closed doors. Offices, private residences, government buildings and embassies are generally available to tour.

The dates for Open House this year are the 20th and 21st of September. It really is the one chance in the year when you can explore and be inspired by some truly spectacular architecture.

High profile and interesting buildings open this year include:

– Portcullis House
– Burlington House
– Admiralty House
– various CrossRail sites

The highlight for the Granit team will however actually be the opening up of a house in Lambourn Road in Clapham SW11.

The building is actually the private residence of Robert Wilson, one of Granit’s Architects. A key aim for this development was to try out and test a raft of green retrofit technologies including:

• external insulation,
• whole house ventilation system,
• solar heating,
• green roof and
• rainwater storage and irrigation system

It was a fascinating learning experience and we would be delighted to provide you with a guided tour to show off our findings on Saturday 20th September. You can find out more here but if you are interested we recommend arriving early. We entered the house in 2013’s Open House too and there was a queue all day…