Since it was founded in 1992, this annual free architecture festival has invited the public to step inside hundreds of London’s usually inaccessible landmark buildings and attend talks and tours across the capital. This year things might look a little different but that hasn’t deterred the organisers from celebrating architecture and the public realm. Read on for our in-person and online highlights at Open House London 2020, which runs from Saturday 19th to Sunday 27th September.

Energy-efficient architecture
If we truly want to avert the climate crisis, we need to change the way we construct buildings and cities – and Open House shines a spotlight on several structures and landscapes that have been created with this in mind. Take a tour of The Library House, a two-storey terraced home designed by London-based Macdonald Wright Architects and built earlier this year, which is heavily insulated, triple-glazed and decked with solar panels. Another low-energy residence to check out, this time online, is Angle House, which makes generous use of cross ventilation and natural light.

Green spaces
From green housing to green spaces. Urban dwellers have long found solace in small pockets of the great outdoors. In south London, local initiative Eat Off Your Street has transformed Aldebert Terrace into an edible street garden where neighbours come together to grow food and a sense of community while they’re at it. In Hackney, Extinction Rebellion’s Garden of Earthly Delights also fosters relationships around food and hosts workshops and events in an effort to raise awareness of empty plots dotted around the city. Then there’s Hackney Marshes, which may be known as the home of Sunday League Football but is in fact filled with wildlife as well as pitches.

Key workers
As well as the doctors and nurses endeavouring to keep people alive and well during the pandemic, key workers from bus drivers to bin men have been working hard to prevent the city from sputtering to a standstill. This year’s Open House seeks to celebrate the architecture of often-overlooked workforces, from Willesden Fire Station – a brown-brick building with creamy stone pillars and painted-red doors – to Bunhill Heat and Power Energy Centre, a station that provides low-carbon heating to some 1,300 properties. Plus, embark on a self-guided walk that marks 20 Years of TfL.

Culture
London’s cultural centres need our help now more than ever, and on offer this year are several socially distanced tours of theatres, night clubs and more that hope to raise both awareness and funds. Islington’s Union Chapel – a working church and an entertainment venue rolled into one – is a cavernous architectural delight, designed by James Cubitt and built in 1877. A short tube ride away, the Grade II-listed Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley is worth seeing as much for its vaulted ceiling and Art Deco wall reliefs as its first-rate rollcall of flicks. Meanwhile, online films and audio tours introduce viewers to the Honeywood Museum in the London Borough of Sutton and the Museum of Richmond.  

Self-guided tours
Last but not least are a handful of walking and cycling tours that you can enjoy at your leisure. First up, an hour-long stroll through the city centre will lead you past a clutch of buildings conceived by the architectural design and engineering studio Foster + Partners, from Principal Place in Hackney to City Hall. If you’d prefer to set your sights on the city’s green spaces, the Greenford Quay cycle tour will see you wend your way along London’s canal path all the way to Paddington. And after all of the above you’ll no doubt be ready for a drink – in which case, look no further than a ramble around London’s Top Architectural Pubs. Gin and tonic, anyone?

Radical residences
There’s nothing like being confined to your home to make you rethink the form and function of housing – something Hungarian-born architect Ernő Goldfinger got right with Trellick Tower, that Brutalist high-rise that looms over north-west London. Another innovative residential building open to the public this year is the Barbican Centre, a concrete maze of apartment blocks, two schools, an arts centre and leafy gardens. Sign up for a tour of both, then join the architect-led walk around some the most historically significant examples of social housing in Lambeth, starting at the River Thames and continuing towards Kennington.