Open House Valencia is a festival of architecture and urbanism whose mission is to bring architecture closer to citizens, highlighting the importance of heritage and cultural identity. Once a year, we open the doors of the best architecture in the city, offering free guided tours, urban routes, competitions, concerts, talks and other activities to spread Valencian architecture and generate sense of belonging. Ultimately, we are building a benchmark community around architecture, art and design.
Furthermore, the project Open House Valencia belongs to the Open House WorldWide Family, an international network formed by 50 cities spread over more than 30 countries around the world. Once a year, the community celebrates the Open House WorldWide Festival, an internacional online event in which all of them participate.
Open House Valencia is an architecture festival whose mission is to bring together and highlight the heritage and cultural identity of the city. A reference community and dissemination platform around architecture, art and design. A young, collective and transversal project that generates synergies between professionals in the sector, students, groups and public institutions.
Through a great annual event, during a weekend we generate pride of belonging through free guided visits to buildings, infrastructures, squares, gardens and constructions that can be toured and explained by the architects and designers who conceived them. Urban routes, talks, concerts, competitions, debates and meetings for students, citizens, professionals from the sector, universities and public institutions complete the festival program.
The third edition of Open House Valencia took place on October 23rd and 24th, 2021. Furthermore, face-to-face activities are complemented with online content on our website. An own digital archive has been incorporated where we compile the graphic and descriptive documentation of the architectural works, documentaries, interviews, 3D visits and aerial videos.
Open House Valencia was born in 2019 and since then it belongs to the Open House WorldWide Family, an international network formed by 50 cities spread over more than 30 countries around the world, which started in London in 1992. The community grows every year through the admission of new cities.
The project Open House Valencia is a non-profit initiative based on social responsibility to democratize architecture. A multidisciplinary and open project, of cohesion and adhesion, born from the dynamic collaboration between our partners and volunteers. We appeal to collective intelligence to reflect on the spaces we inhabit.
Open House Valencia is the result of a sustainable, inclusive, aesthetic and collaborative project, in which stakeholders from all areas of citizenship collectively contribute.
Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context
The project is based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), with the aim of building a sustainable, inclusive, aesthetic and collaborative festival that enhances the value of local architecture and involves citizens and stakeholders all over different levels of society.
The entire proposal of the program is based on sustainable routes to discover the city, where the visitor is invited to be a passer-by walking through the different locations and activities. This conception avoid any type of polluting transport and contributes to a healthy lifestyle, in line with SDG 3, Good Health and Well-Being.
All the guides, collaborators, artists and musicians are local people, so we do not generate trips for them to come to Valencia. In this line, the festival becomes a dissemination platform to make the city's artists known, in line with the SDG 12, Responsible Consumption and Production.
Most of the activities take place in the city center. Nevertheless, the festival also offer visits to gardens, parks and periphery fields around the city, seeking an approach to natural spaces, contributing to SDG 15, Life on land.
The project is committed to online communication that allows us to reduce our carbon footprint to a minimum, as we have avoided the printing of any type of informative support. Online is our greatest ally. Following this line, we also create online content, which allows citizens to enjoy some activities from home.
All our material and merchandising is based on the circular economy, seeking recycled and sustainable materials, as well as being timeless for use in various editions. For example, we have designed the volunteer bib without printing the year on it, so we can reuse it in coming editions, avoiding any type of waste. This way, we contribute to the SDG 13, Climate Action.
In summary, we developed a sustainable and circular project around the architecture, highlighting the local culture and inviting the entire society to participate.
Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context
Year after year, we are becoming a reference community and a dissemination platform around architecture, art and design. The project is based on a high standard of quality, as we select the best examples of architecture in the city to become part of our program.
Graphic and visual quality are our label. In 2021 edition, we made a change of image in order to improve our branding. A non-conformist, energetic and optimistic aesthetic, brings the festival message closer to citizens, with dynamism and versatility.
Open House Valencia Instagram is the aesthetic façade of the project. By this tool, we get to know the knowledge and tastes of people and be able to create personalized content and strategies. Furthermore, we carry out collaborations with other quality projects, contributing to enhance the content we offer to visitors.
All our proposals are supported by a job well done, betting not only on aesthetics, but also on experiences (created by cultural managers) such as Architecture Routes, visits to spaces or architectural trips, which are directed by their authors, as well as for the professionalism of our guests who make the meetings a quality experience. Among them we find great works of contemporary architecture in the city, such as the post-Brutalist building 'Espai Verd' or others as interesting as the remodeling of the shelters from the 'Guerra Civil Española', a landmark of Bauhaus design with its typography.
Open House Valencia project is supported by very prominent entities, such as the Generalitat Valenciana, Ajuntament de València, COACV, CTAV, Academia Europea del Paisaje Urbano, Fundación Bancaja, València Capital Mundial del Disseny, or international architects such as Ramón Esteve and Fran Silvestre, who endorse the project.
By offering high quality contents, we contribute to SDG 4, Quality Education, to all our visitors and citizenship.
Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context
Open House Valencia is an open, collaborative and social festival. We believe in equality, diversity and multiculturality. Throughout our program we offer activities for all audiences, such as general citizens, students, professionals, families, companies, etc.
Every year, we promote talks and thematic seminars for reflection aimed at citizens and students. The challenge we set out this year paid special attention to vulnerable sectors related to functional diversity. This action seeks to put this issue on the table to provide improvements in the realization of new projects and in the adaptation of existing buildings, with the aim of achieving a fairer, more accessible and inclusive Valencia.
In the seminar, we invited to participate a local association that works with children that suffer from brain paralysis, as well as different experts in the field of accessibility and design. After the talk, the students and young architects worked in a Hackathon, a dynamic contest to make proposals on the issue. Working by teams, they had to analyze a building and the neighborhood around it in order to improve the accessibility of the environment, in order to contribute to a better usability of the architecture and public spaces. By this action, we contribute to de SDG 10, Reduced inequalities.
It is highly necessary to stress the need to establish criteria for an architecture in which no one is naturally excluded. These criteria will not only help people with the most needs, but will also facilitate the architectural and urban planning experience of any user.
We must also bear in mind that Open House Valencia is a totally free event, accessible to all social classes, contributing to SDG 1, No Poverty.
In addition, half of the Open House Valencia steering committee are composed by women, contributing to SDG 5, Gender Equality.
Please highlight how this approach can be exemplary
Open House Valencia is a sustainable, inclusive, aesthetic and collaborative project, in which stakeholders from all areas of citizenship collectively contribute. The project approaches art, design, architecture and culture to all kind of publics, regaining the sense of belonging of Valencian society.
Sustainable, as it is based on climate goals, circular economy, local stakeholders, zero emissions, online communication, approaching to biodiversity.
Inclusive, as it is a festival made for all audiences, such as citizens, students, families, architecture professionals, companies, etc. It offers free activities, which means it is accessible for all social classes. It includes specific seminars to design a more accessible city, such as the Hackathon contest about vulnerable sectors related to functional diversity. It is made by an egalitarian team, half part men and half part women. Everyone can participate, as a volunteer, as a visitor, in the different contests... The operation of the festival generates synergies between different environments of the sector -students, companies, institutions, etc.-, promoting the cultural and also the economic sector.
Aesthetic, as we work around architecture, art and design. Open House Valencia is becoming a reference platform around Valencian architecture, on account of quality, functionality and beauty are key values for the festival. Both historical and contemporary buildings are welcome, contributing to a plural offer.
Finally, the festival itself contributes to create a better and plural city, valorising diversity and equality for all and generating a pride of belonging to the heritage of the city and its history. Thanks to this project we are rebuilding a new collective imaginary, in which to be proud based on the knowledge of this great city, its history, its architecture, its groups and the future that we have left to build.
Open House Valencia 2021 closes its third edition with resounding success in terms of impact and participation. The architecture festival has closed its third edition with more than 21,000 participants among all the face-to-face and digital activities that it has made available to citizens for free during the weekend of October 23 and 24, despite the rigorous restriction of capacity.
After the 2020 edition, marked by the reduction in capacity and digital content, this year Open House Valencia has recovered face-to-face attendance on its routes and in visits to the 50 buildings that have been open to the public for free this weekend, as well as in the different contests and activities. In total, the festival offered 50 visits to buildings, 10 urban routes, 2 contests, 3 seminars and meetings, 2 concerts as well as more than 10 different digital content, such as audiovisual interviews and 3D virtual tours.
To the more than 21,000 visits that the event has obtained, we must add an enormous social repercussion through the media and digital platforms. More than 80 appearances in the media -press, radio and TV- between the months of July to November 2021, which add up to a huge traffic in social conversation.
It is estimated that the event had an audience in social networks of more than 223,000 hits, 17,000 accounts reached and nearly 174,000 page views on the web, while the total audience in the media amounts to 4.5 million viewers.
In the attached documents, we provide the media report that supports the exposed data, as well as the economic report of the festival impact.
The spectacular impact of Open House Valencia demonstrate the huge interest of Valencian society in the project. By the activities the festival offer, citizens have the chance to discover the best architecture around them, their own heritage, increasing their local sense of belonging and feeling more connected with their city.
Please also explain the benefits that derived from their involvement.
Open House Valencia is a project open to citizens, architecture professionals and public administrations. Thus, we have different channels of active listening: our social networks, the surveys we carry out, the conversations with the different cultural managers, and the search for opportunities among the most vulnerable groups through visits and meetings. In the same way that we generate debates and contests to search for solutions. We listen, filter and give the optimal result to the opinions and problems of our society.
With this information, we are generating an ad hoc program for our city, responding to their curiosities and interests; in the same way, through the debates and competitions we solve problems that we transfer as a global solution to the public administration.
We have managed to get the city to look at its heritage from another point of view, generating a direct experience with users, who have enjoyed an approach to the architecture and history of the city in a unique way. They are the first to thank the great learning that the festival has entailed, and the valuable outreach work that has been generated.
Architects participate by showing their own projects in guided tours, also benefiting from the publicity generated by the festival. Students can participate in the Hackathon contest, proposing new solutions to the challenges. Anyone can become a volunteer, helping in the organization or cooperating as a tour guide. Citizens can take part as a visitors and attending open seminars, as well as participating in the Open Photo, our photography contest for all audiences. Companies can contribute as a sponsors. And institutions give support and partnership.
Thanks to our work, the city has considerably increased its pride of belonging, first becoming a tourist in its own city and later a staunch defender of them thanks to understanding the city hand in hand with its creators, and making it their own. This is the soft investment the festival offers.
We have been working under the concept of 'Sustainable City' in many areas of architecture and urban planning, and we have focused on sustainable construction and habitability.
Thus, in collaboration with the Azalea Project of the Universitat Politècnica de València, we have drawn the building of the future, based on traditional and local construction methods.
The inspiration in vernacular architecture, in this case, of the Valencian barrack, is due to the sensitivity to oblivion in which buildings of this type are found in the surroundings of the city of Valencia. There is an obvious danger of extinction of a way of life linked to the landscape of the Valencian orchard, which has its architectural expression in the barraca.
Its objective, very simple, like its own architecture: to improve the quality of life of citizens by committing to energy savings. And it is that the barrack, built mainly with wood and insulated with cork, has a very low energy demand. Likewise, it combines existing technology, materials and techniques to obtain innovative solutions, contributing to DSG 7, Affordable and Clean Energy.
We tackle climate change from the promotion of walking tours (urban routes), social inequalities from debate spaces (such as the Hackathon), the cohesion of society from open events by carrying out a free program with open-air concerts, promoting the multidisciplinarity of public spaces and inviting citizens to live and use them from many different points of view.
Cultural enrichment is promoted from the dissemination of current trends in art and design with our exhibitions, round tables, with the content of our social networks and web, and audiovisual proposals, always in search of an open and plural city, creative and socially cohesive.
Furthermore, as we belong to the Open House WorldWide Family, each city has its festival but also we share experiences, goals and ideas, going beyond the local perspective to an international outlook.
There are many entities working around architecture and all of them are important and have a target audience. Schools are for students, professional institutions for architects, architects for clients, agencies for tourists, cultural societies for specific sectors, etc. If there is something that makes the difference about Open House Valencia, is that we contribute to all together.
We are a great dissemination platform around architecture, art and design, not only for professionals, but for the entire citizenship. We have developed a broader and more plural vocabulary, designed for all audiences, telling architecture from an entertaining and cultural point of view.
We contribute to generate synergies, making connections between the different areas around the sector. For instance, during the festival the students that cooperate as a guide tours are in direct contact with the architects, creating networking and contributing to a future business, contributing to DSG 8, Decent Work and Economic Growth.
Some traditional corporations related to architecture are nowadays somewhat old-fashioned entities that have stopped appealing to their followers and citizens. On the other hand, Open House Valencia offers a fresh and innovative project with a contemporary content and high quality aesthetics, which is able to talk to the entire society, making architecture and its world interesting to new targets.
We have generated a physical and online festival, which allows us to transcend any type of border. We are constantly developing a program of avant-garde activities, which brings together everything from street debates to urban routes to learn about the heritage of our town, as well as all kinds of audiovisual files for the enjoyment of any interested party.
We have been able to mix leisure with culture, generate different activities in unique spaces without damaging the environment, contributing to DSG 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities.
Please provide clear documentation, communication of methodology and principles in this context.
The event is held annually and offers 48 hours of free open doors to landmark buildings, with the aim of disseminating information about the world of architecture, art and design. Open House Valencia invites you to understand and feel architecture in a unique way from close experience, based on the work of our collaborators and volunteers, in a context of cultural, social and environmental emotions.
We are generating synergies with the main universities, both public and private, who see us as a fundamental pillar for the practice and knowledge of students. In the same way, we became a dissemination support at the height of any architecture magazine.
Our work is immense and this is supported by some private entities that want to approach our project for its quality and scope, as well as by public entities as the city council and others. Also the Valencian Tourist Office itself has collaborated with us to spread the city's heritage.
With work, we have become an educational entity for all types of public and citizens, a benchmark on how to act in the face of heritage and how to generate not only a pride of belonging, but also a new way of carrying out sustainable tourism.
As a part of a larger community of cities around the world, each city has its own festival and has autonomy to develop their strategies to engage public and to design their program. Although Open House Valencia has just celebrated its third edition, it has quickly became a reference regarding the practice and aesthetics of the rest of the festivals, who consult us about the progress of our program and objectives to involve it in theirs. In the same way, we have become a reference project within the city and the Spanish state.
Without a doubt, Open House Valencia is a great example of a plural, sustainable, inclusive and aesthetic project that involves the entire citizenship, contributing to build a more resilient, cultural and friendly city for all of us.
For a better understanding of the festival of architecture Open House Valencia, we attach some additional documentation:
- General information about the project: mission, vision, values.
- Festival program 2021: 3rd Edition of Open House Valencia.
- Clipping and media report, to analyze press and media impacts, as well as the economic impact.
About the photographies below, the credits correspond to Open House Valencia 2021.
@Open House Valencia, 2021
Content licensed to the European Union.