The second Annual Summit of Open House Europe, titled The City Invites, will be proudly hosted by the Irish Architecture Foundation (IAF) when it comes to Dublin on January 30th and 31st, 2025. 

Hosting this year’s Open House Europe Annual Summit in Dublin, the IAF will welcome over 70 delegates from 20 countries to this exciting two-day conference held on January 30th and 31st in The Printworks at Dublin Castle. 

The summit will have a private and public programme exploring how accessibility and inclusion can reshape cities into places that are open, vibrant, and welcoming for all.

The summit’s title, The City Invites, captures its essence—a call to action and a challenge to imagine cities as places that embrace diversity, celebrate inclusion, and thrive on collective creativity. By exploring themes such as participatory democracy, the creative reuse of existing structures, and universal design homes, the summit will delve into how urban spaces can evolve to promote inclusion, foster connections, and unlock their full potential for all inhabitants. 

The summit will feature thought-provoking discussions and panels with leading voices in architecture, design, and civic participation. Opening the programme will be the special conversation This City Imagined, a revisiting of Group 91’s transformation of Temple Bar in 1991. This project helped launch the careers of nationally and internationally acclaimed architects, including Grafton Architects, O’Donnell + Tuomey, McCullough Mulvin, Shay Cleary, Shane O’Toole and others, who will reflect on how architecture can inspire new ways of living and interacting within the urban fabric. This conversation will set the stage for wider explorations of how cities across Europe can draw from their unique histories and resources to build coalitions of inclusion, fostering unexpected and abundant joy in the process.

At the core of the public programme, The City Belongs panel will delve into the transformative role of community involvement in urban planning, and The City Reused will be a conversation about adapting existing spaces for creative and sustainable futures. Meanwhile, The City Includes will tackle housing access and universal design principles, ensuring cities are inclusive at every level.

This second summit of Open House Europe will be hosted by the Irish Architecture Foundation, the organisers of Open House Dublin. The summit is co-organised by Forum Kunst und Architektur, the organisation behind Open House Essen, and Culture and Management Club, which leads Open House Brno. The summit culminates the 2024 programme of Open House Europe, in which more than a dozen Open House festivals across the continent explored accessible and inclusive aspects of the urban built environment through their own unique festival programmes.

Mark the dates and join us in Dublin for this exceptional gathering of ideas, perspectives, and opportunities to shape the cities of tomorrow. The detailed programme of the event will be announced on openhouseeurope.org and architecturefoundation.ie at the beginning of January.

Project Partners

Open House Athens and Thessaloniki (Open House Greece), Open House Bilbao (Asociación Open Urbanity), 48h Open House Barcelona, Open House Brno (Culture and Management Club), Open House Dublin (The Irish Architecture Foundation), Open House Essen (Forum Kunst & Architektur), Open House Praha, Open House Roma, Open House Stockholm, Open House Lisboa (Lisbon Architecture Triennale), Open House Slovenia (AFRONT zavod za prostorsko inovativnost), Open House Milano, Open House Tallinn (Mittetulundusühing Eesti Arhitektuurikeskus), Open House Valencia, Open House Vilnius (Architektūros fondas).