The increasingly ubiquitous availability of digital manuals, DIY instructions, design inspirations and reference models has contributed to a rise in amateur domestic construction, yet it fails to provide professional basis and advice to the numerous projects undertaken by the untrained. A plethora of websites is dedicated to creating small objects, redecorating and fixing one’s home but leaves the ambitious user helpless. In order to repair the rift between expert and homeowner, Open House is created towards a social joint venture between knowledge and ambition.
Through various means, the user can seek help on-line and on-site by working with a vending machine of architectural recipes, personal consulting and over-the-counter troubleshooting, experience and support being the only goods exchanged during the process. With Open House, architecture and design become a drop-in centre for the neighbourhood, turning clients into involved workers to realise individual projects of all natures.
Open House serves as a prototypical (public) institution where professional designers support residents to realise, document and share creative (private) projects.
Open House expands the social, cultural and economic responsibility of architecture within the domain of urban transformation through capacity building on behalf of its users.
Open House depicts a model throughout affairs concerning accessible tools, materials and people by mediating between stores and suppliers, clients and neighbours, arts and crafts.
Open House collects realised projects in favour of an accumulative library which can be utilised for future design questions in physical and digital publications.
