63,000+ people RE/DISCOVER the city

Posted Thu 24th Oct 2024 | katie.evans@ohm.org.au

The Open House Melbourne Weekend 2024 festival was enthusiastically embraced, despite some challenging weather, attracting over 63,000 in-person and online visits including open buildings, tours, talks, events, exhibitions and online programs.

This year’s theme, RE/DISCOVER your City, encouraged Melburnians and the broader community to reconnect with the places they love, explore new offerings and gain an understanding of the city from different perspectives. Many of our Collaborators marked significant milestones this year and it was wonderful to have them celebrate with us!

Across 174 program listings Open House Melbourne delivered 876 individual tours, talks, workshops, performances and exhibitions. The program spoke to the curious at heart, the life-long learner and the city explorer and offered a diverse array of experiences—from smallscale private homes like WOWOWA Magic and Robin Boyd’s Wildwood House to large infrastructure projects such as the Melbourne Arts Precinct Transformation. Innovative housing projects, including Assemble, Nightingale, Rushall Park, and Brougham Street Cohousing, were featured, along with landscape projects such as the Greenline. The Koorie Heritage Trust opened the doors on their new renovation and the ANZ presented public tours of the Verdon Chambers at the ANZ Gothic Bank for the first time.

Through our programming, Open House Melbourne connects people to place, helping them to better understand our city, how it has developed over time, the decisions and issues that shape it as it grows and role that good design plays in ensuring it thrives into the future. This year we engaged 150 collaborators made up of architecture + design practices, building owners/managers and community groups. Over 420 paid staff and 620 organisation-affiliated volunteers participated on the Weekend to assist in delivering the program.

To learn more about the Weekend 2024’s visitor engagement and impact, read the Weekend report here.

Open House Melbourne could not deliver our program without the support and generosity of many dedicated organisations and people. We thank our Major Sponsors—the City of Melbourne, Creative Victoria and long-term partners Studio Payne and Efront, alongside our Major Program partners, Major Practice partners, Major Precinct Partners and the generous contribution of the Open House Melbourne Board, Building Council and Volunteer Council.

Sincere thanks to our Collaborators, valued Practice, Program and Precinct Partners, Media and Digital Partners, Donors, Sponsors and over 400 passionate and pink-vested volunteers. And finally, we would like to acknowledge the passionate engagement and enthusiastic participation of our audience—it is wonderful to program for people who love the city and good design as much as we do. Thank you!