It’s a blustery Saturday morning in London, and as I step out of the station, Peckham Rye is alight with its usual weekend bustle; plastic bowls of fruit crowd shop tables, the air is pungent with salt fish, and pedestrians narrowly avoid buses as they stray from the busy pavement. I turn down Blenheim Grove, in search of a bright yellow flag with a black key at its centre. It signals that this row of terraced houses, like hundreds of other venues across London, is open to the public as part of this year’s Open House festival.
I’m led inside by Jonathan Duffett of Yard Architects, who worked on the fit-out of the property. As I remove my shoes, a selection of wine bottles glint up at me from a sunken wine cellar in the terrazzo tiled floor. I ascend an oak staircase to a spacious first-floor kitchen flooded with natural light. Behind me, a wall of corrugated aluminium extends from the entrance hallway to the top floor living room, giving the space an industrial feel. On the opposite end of the kitchen, a yellow-drenched stairwell contrasts with an otherwise muted palette of Clayworks plaster, dark-stained oak, and black metalwork.
Located on a former brownfield site beside the Peckham Rye train tracks, this terrace of five contemporary houses — two subdivided into apartments — marks London’s first custom-build housing development. A collaboration between developer Unboxed Homes and Poulsom Middlehurst (with interiors by Yard Architects and New Makers Bureau), the homes were sold as structural shells, giving buyers a watertight exterior while leaving interiors unfinished. This approach lets residents customise layouts, materials, and finishes without the hurdles associated with traditional self-build, offering a new way to increase choice and affordability in London’s challenging housing market. Completed in 2020, Blenheim Grove won an RIBA London Award in 2025 for its design and impact.
As we walk from room to room, some members of the tour ask informed questions about the house’s materials and specifications. Others, it appears, are simply here to indulge a sense of curiosity in other people’s homes. Since 1992, the Open House festival, organized by the nonprofit Open City, has catered to both types of visitors in London: offering something for architectural enthusiasts and the chronically nosey alike.
Organisers have described this year’s Open House festival as its “biggest and boldest edition to date.” Across two weekends, the programme invited the public into interesting homes, skyscrapers, government buildings, and landmark architectural projects across every London borough. I could have attended a gong bath in St Paul’s Cathedral, stepped behind the curtain at the British National Ballet, and even taken a tour of the Prime Minister’s residence at number 10 Downing Street — all for free.
Yet while a large focus of the Open House festival is on bringing the public into little-seen, exclusive spaces in London, there’s an undercurrent to this year’s programming that reverses this logic, with an emphasis on drawing individuals out into openly-accessible public space — and spotlighting their collective power to shape the built environment around them.
“Whilst opening up iconic buildings is an important part of the festival, it’s often local spaces like community centres, parks, and neighbourhood initiatives that shape daily life for most Londoners and result in higher scores for sense of belonging as a result of visiting,” says Celia Mead, Open House Festival Director. “By highlighting these local, community-led projects and events, the festival invites people to explore and appreciate the diverse environments that make up their own neighbourhoods.”
One such initiative is happening just down the road from Blenheim Grove. Atop a multi-storey car park in the centre of Peckham, local architect and historian Benedict O’Looney (known as Benny) leads a sketching workshop to document one of the area’s most cherished views. “It seems like a poignant way to remember this view that we love so much, in case we lose it,” he reflects.
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That loss looms over Peckham as developer Berkeley Homes pursues a controversial plan to redevelop the area. Their proposal, rejected by Southwark Council but now headed to the National Planning Inspectorate for an appeal this October, would see the demolition of the Aylesham Shopping Centre and the construction of 16 high-rise apartment blocks. Campaigners from Aylesham Community Action warn that only 50 of the planned 867 flats would qualify as social housing, with the majority of units aimed at second-home buyers and overseas investors rather than the local community. They argue the towers, which would rise well above Peckham’s current skyline, would fundamentally alter the character of this historically working-class area, while offering nothing to meet the needs of the existing community.
After a successful community campaign, Aylesham Community Action is now urgently fundraising £50,000 to secure specialist legal representation ahead of the October planning appeal. Andreea Vasilcin, a local resident, highlights that the Open House festival has, for the second year, been a crucial vehicle for promoting attention to their cause in London.
“As a city-wide festival, Open House is really great at attracting people from all areas of London and drawing attention to local struggles and helping to build connections across different boroughs. All around London, communities are fighting against insensitive overdevelopment. This isn’t a localised, single-issue campaign. Maybe the developer’s name is different or it’s a different council, but the fights are the same, usually about failing to meet the needs of the local communities.”
The question of whose voices shape the city runs throughout this year’s festival programme. By Saturday evening, I crossed the river to attend a debate at The Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great, London’s oldest surviving church. Chairs fill the vast, stone-walled interior with an audience of all ages, though the crowd skews young. The topic is community co-design—how power can genuinely be shared with local people in the planning and development of urban spaces.
A panel of architects, urban consultants, and community organisers trade perspectives on what meaningful collaboration truly requires. One striking example comes from Kuljeet Sibia, founding director of the inclusive design consultancy Diverse Dialogues. In Ilford, East London, the practice is leading community engagement for a major regeneration scheme called Ilford Arrival, which aims to improve access to green space through a new bridge, pocket park, riverside walk, and the restoration of an abandoned golf course.
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Given that 25 percent of the town centre’s residents are under the age of 15, it was crucial that young people’s voices shaped the plan. Diverse Dialogues has therefore created a co-client team of girls and young women aged 16 to 25—not merely an advisory panel but a group empowered to work alongside delivery partners and influence decisions at every stage. Early sessions covered topics such as development economics, power structures, and perceptions of the town, laying the groundwork for these young people to engage as informed, equal decision-makers.
The initiative, supported by the Greater London Authority’s Civic Partnership Programme (CPP), will also explore the creation of an Urban Room—a more permanent space intended to involve young people in city-making processes. Far from a traditional “tick-box” consultation, the project could help shift the balance of power toward those with lived experience and a stake in Ilford’s future, while nurturing a renewed sense of local pride. Though still in development, it offers a promising example of how London might grow with, rather than over, its communities.
One of these assistant curators is Khaira Abimbola, a recent architecture graduate from the University of Edinburgh. In her role, she focused on highlighting events likely to appeal to young audiences, even those without an interest in architecture, using them as entry points into wider conversations about the built environment. She explains: “I have friends and family who don’t normally engage with architecture; they switch off when I start talking about buildings. So in my role as a curator, I focused on promoting events and activities that go beyond architecture, while still showing how diverse and vibrant London really is.”
Asked about a personal highlight, Khaira recalls: “When I was a student coming to this festival, I mostly just went to houses. But this time, I visited the archive of a Black bookshop and learned all about Black British history in London. It was so inspiring to see what these archives do, and it even made me consider volunteering there myself.”
Her experience demonstrates that city-making is not only about buildings, but also about the histories and communities that they house. By going beyond a focus on architecture itself, this year’s Open House festival programme in London shows that the city is shaped as much by its people and their experiences as by its structures.
Stepping out of the church, I feel a renewed appreciation for the city around me. Rather than simply opening the doors to London’s most exclusive buildings, the true heart of the Open House festival lies in opening up architecture and city-making itself to a wider public. In doing so, it reminds us Londoners that the future of our city is not determined solely by architects and developers, but by the communities who live, work, and envision their city every day.
