This year’s Open House Melbourne is playing host to over 180 programs of tours, talks and first looks at Melbourne’s most exciting places and spaces from Friday 24 July to Sunday 26 July.

From heritage buildings and private homes to newly completed precincts, the line-up invites you to go behind the closed doors of some of the city’s most iconic institutions and ordinarily private spaces.

Notable buildings joining the program this year include The Primrose Potter Australian Ballet Centre, where you can tour the costume department and rehearsal studios. You can also peek behind the counter at ST. ALi Coffee Roastery, explore the Rock Posters printing factory in Thornbury and peek inside the new Transurban Freeway Control Centre in Footscray, which operates CityLink and the new West Gate Tunnel.

The program also features several new spaces shaping Melbourne’s next chapter. You can partake in a tour of Melbourne Airport’s new Drop Off and Pick Up Zones, the sprawling Melbourne Quarter precinct at the meeting point of the CBD and Docklands, Foodbank Victoria’s brand new purpose-built facility, South Yarra Prahran Social Housing, and Olivine Place and Gumnut Park, which will be lit up for Oli Glows, a captivating after-dark light display experience. 

For the die-hard design fanatics, a number of leading local and international architecture and design studios are opening up, including ARM, Wardle and Snøhetta.

If you’re the type to go to open inspections just to have a nosey (with no intention of buying), then you’ll want to pen the private homes into your diary. Ones to watch are Materia: A St Kilda Passivhaus by Obsessive Architecture, plus One House, Four Generations, a multigenerational home in Malvern designed by Gisele Benkemoun. You can also see inside Agius Scorpo Architects’ renovation of one of the Cairo Flats, a 1936 apartment complex designed Acheson Best Overend of Taylor Soilleux & Overend.

Returning favourites include the Parliament of Victoria, Victorian Archives Centre, Victorian Pride Centre, the Albanian Mosque in Carlton North and Hawthorn Tram Depot. For the sports and entertainment lovers, watch out for VIP behind-the-scene access to Rod Laver Arena. And for music fans, there’s the chance to see one of the most historically significant collections of electronic musical instruments worldwide at the Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio.

Open House Melbourne’s executive director and chief curator, Tania Davidge, explains this year’s theme, ‘Generous City’, and the organisation’s mission: 

“One of the things I love about Melbourne is its generosity, the ways in which our city gives more than it takes. The 2027 Open House Melbourne Weekend explores how design, creativity and architecture can foster a culture of openness, offering space, care and possibility for all the people who live, work and play here,” Davidge says.

“Our mission is to connect people to good design and inspire public conversations about the future of our city. The Open House Melbourne Weekend is the ideal time to explore and celebrate the places and spaces that make our city the best in the world and to learn about how we are making it a more generous place for all Melburnians.”

With the event being the largest architecture and built environment festival in the Asia Pacific region, it’s recommended visitors plan ahead to get the most out of the weekend. Organisers have also prepared a range of itineraries for different regions and interests across the city.

See the full festival program here.

Top image: Artbank Melbourne

Images: Supplied.