The 2022 Gold Coast Open House Architecture Festival will open the doors of new and historic homes, buildings and other interesting places across the Gold Coast and Northern Rivers region from Tuesday 4 to Sunday 16 October, with 40 free events and building tours that celebrate the unique architecture and design of our coastal city.
Gold Coast Open House is part of Open House Worldwide, the largest celebration of urban design in the world.
In launching the 2022 Program, Gold Coast Acting Mayor, Cr Donna Gates, said “Open House is a magical look into our city’s architecture and architectural past, curated by industry experts across a range of fields. There’s something for everyone so log on, choose your tour or forum, and get involved in this fantastic program.”
Festival Chair Dr Rosemary Kennedy, who will deliver her first Gold Coast Open House in 2022, said this year’s program captures the essence of what makes living on the Gold Coast so unique. “We are a city surrounded by water, renowned for our climate and beach lifestyle, but rarely our architecture. In recent years this has changed.
“Our city’s architecture reflects its dynamic evolution into an international tourism destination and a modern city that 600,000 people (and counting) call home. The Open House architecture festival invites the community to engage with us in conversations about how we design our homes and city for the future and opens the doors to everything from carbon neutral to narrow lot houses, sky-scraping residential towers to remote mountain cabins, and historical homes to major infrastructure such as the always popular desalination plant.”
This year’s festival promises something for everyone with architect-guided tours of homes and community buildings, tours of historic buildings, self-guided walking tours, documentary screenings, student events, a series of Open House panel talks and more. More than a dozen events will be held at HOTA, Home of the Arts and Gold Coast Open House.
2022 Festival Ambassador, Nicole Dyer from ABC Gold Coast, said that Open House is an open invitation for locals and visitors to go behind the scenes of some of their favourite new and old buildings, and discover places they’ve never seen before.
“What I love most about Gold Coast Open House is that, despite having lived and worked in the region for 15 years, every year I’m surprised to discover local hidden gems that I never knew existed, like the Ernest Junction Railway Tunnel in this year’s program.
“How we preserve the ‘old Gold Coast’ with the needs of one of the fastest growing cities in Australia is both exciting and terrifying. I love that the Open House architecture festival pays homage to both and opens conversations about how we’re going to strike this balance.
The Gold Coast Open House 2022 Program highlights include:
ARCHITECT-LED TOURS OF NEW HOMES & RESIDENTIAL TOWERS
For those looking for inspiration into sustainable design, Peter McArdle from ptma architecture will be leading tours of Kingfisher House Gold Coast, a recently completed net-zero, carbon-neutral house in Currumbin Waters. Further up the valley, Paul Uhlmann Architects are inviting visitors to Cloudview, a unique mountain cabin designed to maximise rainwater capture and take in the views from Palm Beach to Cabarita.
The canal-side family home Selamanya in Burleigh Waters by BDA Architecture and Hennessy Builders will be opening the doors to their light-filled, quintessentially Gold Coast Home. And up the road in Mermaid Beach, those who have watched the construction of the impressive entrance to the new residential tower at 272 Hedges Avenue will be interested to hear from architect Rafael Contreras about the vision and construction of this wow-factor façade.
South of the border, Aphora Architecture will lead tours of Banksia House, winner of a 2022 Queensland Architectural Award for New Homes, and further south in Suffolk Park people can discover the ultimate contemporary beach shack, House on Brandon, by Seven Mile Architects.
Amy Degenhart from degenhartSHEDD, the architect behind Coastside, a spacious three-storey narrow-lot home in Mermaid Beach, will be hosting a Q&A at Art‒Work together with Joel Lewis from Dune St landscape architects. Attendees will hear insights from Amy and Joel on how to effectively design and build on the increasingly common narrow lot.
BEHIND-THE-SCENES TOURS OF COMMUNITY PLACES
The always popular Gold Coast Desalination Plant and Hinze Dam are both on the tour program again in 2022. In the Northern Gold Coast, the expansive new Pimpama Sports Hub joins the program for the first time, with tours highlighting the design and sustainability features led by architects Liquid Blu and Place Design Group. Visitors to CORNERBLOCK in Arundel will also witness what can be achieved in the modern workplace when sustainability, energy efficiency and human well-being are front and centre in the design.
For those who are more culturally-minded, HOTA will be leading tours of the iconic gallery and outdoor stage together with ARM Architects, and Art‒Work in Mermaid Beach will be opening their doors for those interested in seeing behind-the-scenes of a creative design studio.
Check out the operations behind the scenes of one of our most iconic surf clubs, the Kurrawa Surf Life Saving Club, or those who are feeling more energetic can join the team from degenhartSHEDD architects for a walking tour of the Lendlease-designed Varsity Lakes precinct.
OPEN HOUSE TALKS
In our 2022 Open House Talks series, four panels of experts will discuss a range of topics in relation to the design of our city – from designing for water and green spaces, to getting clever design without deep pockets and designing liveable, accessible houses for life.
DOCUMENTARY SCREENINGS & OTHER EVENTS AT HOTA
Director Ben Kalina will virtually join the screening of his documentary film Shored Up for a live Q&A to discuss the themes of Shored Up – what a rising sea will do to our homes and communities – in a local context. The screening of local indigenous documentary Yana Yenyin Baia (Go with the rising tide) will be followed by a panel discussion led by Shannon Best, Indigenous Oral History Officer at the City of Gold Coast.
Homeowners planning their own renovation or building projects can access a limited number of free 1:1 design ideation sessions with leading local architects at Ask an Architect. And Year 10, 11 and 12 students thinking about a career in architecture can spend a morning getting a feel for the craft at Architect for a Day, presented by the Australian Institute of Architects.
SELF-GUIDED WALKING TOURS & PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION
For those who like to explore on foot, three self-guided walking tours will be released on the new Gold Coast Open app on 4 October. The tours take the in sites of our Surfers Paradise Towers of the 60s and 70s, Award Winning Contemporary Apartment Buildings, and the Historic Buildings of Southport. There will be two prizes of $1,000 each up for grabs as part of the annual Gold Coast Open House photography competition, sponsored by the Griffith University Cities Research Institute, with participants submitting selected photos from the self-guided walking tours.
Festival transport partner Hopo will be offering 2-4-1 day passes throughout the festival to help people get to and from HOTA, and to the various locations on the self-guided walks.
