INTRODUCTION

Open House Stockholm is an architecture and built environment festival that caters to the public who gets the opportunity to visit unique buildings and places for free, participate in seminars and on guided tours and thereby gain new knowledge about their city. The festival aims to stimulate interest in architecture and community building through direct experience and by discovering the city yourself. The public is invited to actively participate which contributes to debate and discussion about the city's development.

BACKGROUND

Open House was founded in London in 1992. Now Open House Stockholm is part of Open House Worldwide, and thus in itself part of one international cooperation. Within the framework of Open House Worldwide the concept is implemented in more than 50 festivals in different cities, Stockholm being one of them. By allowing the citizens to take part in various attractions throughout Stockholm, the festival draws attention to the multicultural nature of our society in a new, creative way. Open House Stockholm shows how the city is influenced by cultures from all over the world. At the same time, the aim of the architecture festival is to include the entire city's population in the dialogue about the city's development, which promotes democracy. Most people have been well aware that Stockholm is a segregated city for a long time, something that has unfortunately also become apparent through the outbreak of the pandemic. Through the festival, we want to contribute to reduced segregation with activities in Stockholm's suburbs. Within the framework of Open House World Wide, the ongoing joint international is organized online activities. We would like to see collaborations to lift national minorities in the future within the framework of our festival and will in the future review what opportunities we have around this type of cooperation.

OPEN HOUSE STOCKHOLM

Open House Stockholm is a non-profit association founded in 2015 by four associations whose members are engaged in community building in different ways: the Community Building Link at KTH, Stockholm Architects Association, Samhällsbyggarna and Stockholms Byggnadsförening. In 2020, left the Stockholm Architects' Association as a member. During 2021, it was added the association for Community Planning as a new member. Open House was held in Stockholm for the first time on 7–8 October 2016 and since then it has been held every year in October with the exception of 2020 when it was moved to November due to the current situation with the pandemic.

OPEN HOUSE STOCKHOLM 2022

Open House Stockholm was organized for the seventh time on September 30 - October 2, 2022. In the greater Stockholm area, you could visit 75 physical objects during the weekend (urban development projects, buildings, outdoor walks around different places and parks, a concrete factory and resource park, try being an architect, etc.) as well as take part in digital material from different program points. During the 2022 festival, special activities aimed at the younger generation were arranged the target group through e-sports-related objects. Great importance was placed on arranging events outside the inner city out to the suburbs to increase the inclusion of different target groups and increase exchange across the borders of the greater Stockholm area. To increase inclusion and diversity in the 2022 festival, Open House Stockholm also has collaborated with SFX (learning Swedish for professionals), where engineers and architects from different countries were able to be volunteers and thus got a foot into the Swedish the civil engineering industry and society at large.

OPEN HOUSE STOCKHOLM 2023

1. Program

The festival's program and interesting objects are what mainly attract visitors, therefore including a breadth of different categories ensures a larger audience. Secret rooms, ongoing infrastructure, construction sites, art, private residences, parks and squares are many examples of categories you can work with during the design of the program. It is also important to include the whole city, an advantage is therefore to work with clusters outside the city center to promote the variety of visitors and target groups.

2. Visitors/target groups

The vision for our visitors is to create a longing for the festival, which means that the festival must be adapted to as large a variety of visitors as possible. This requires us to get to know the different target groups, for example by capturing visitors in the younger ages, but also to ensure accessibility and flexibility so that we can include a larger target group in the festival. By broadening and finding new target groups but also by building trust in our current target groups, we work to involve all citizens in important urban development issues.

3. Collaborations

Increasing and developing collaboration with several different parties is a prerequisite for increasing awareness of the festival and thus being able to work towards our goal of promoting interest in architecture and community building. Having collaborations with, among other things, universities such as the Royal institute of technology is a fantastic opportunity to increase commitment to the festival, as an interest in architecture and community planning already exists among students on these programs. In order to increase knowledge and interest about the festival, it is of great importance to increase visibility through various channels, it can be in local media where we are now collaborating with the newspaper "mitti", but also with the City of Stockholm and Visit Stockholm or OHWW and OHEU for a wider target group.

4. Themes

In the design of the program, some themes have been discussed to deal with in order to cover as wide group of visitors as possible. Challenges such as climate change, the city at the right time etc. are themes that are very current, at the same time other important parts such as sports and the role of children and young people in urban development must not be forgotten. Covering as wide a range of themes as possible in the program and its objects is a prerequisite to ensure variety among visitors. In 2023, we will also be able to add themes linked to the collaboration with OHEU.

5. Other

In line with the purpose and goals of the business direction, there are some challenges to work on in order to strengthen the association and the festival, among other things, an expanded collaboration with OHWW and OHEU, planning other events connected to the festival, for example bike tours, debates and talks, etc.

GOAL 2023

The basic idea is to invite the public to free activities and guided tours where they can visit and experience unique buildings, places and neighborhoods. Through this direct experience of good architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and interior design, knowledge and interest will increase, as will the public's ability to debate and participate in the city's development. The city, its architecture and its construction works have a great influence on how we live our lives. Stockholm's rapid development and expansion means that these questions are extremely important in our time. Our long-term goal is to run the festival on the first weekend in October for many years. Through this, we want to create a development in three stages for the public: - Own experiences of the city, its architecture and its construction works. - Dialogue with municipalities, architects, urban planners, builders and property owners. - Increased opportunities for the public to actively participate and thus contribute to the city's development. SCHEDULE The festival will be held the first weekend in October 2023, 29/9-1/10, as a physical festival in Stockholm. The festival takes place with approx. 60 objects in the greater Stockholm area. We will also work with the start-up of other events that are spread over the year. This could be, for example, more bicycle tours, tours with specific themes or focus areas.

VOLUNTEERS

In addition to the people who have been active through the exhibitors (e.g. as guides, property owners or employees), around 50 volunteers have helped during the festival weekend 2022. Volunteers served as hosts for visitors to the shows, answered general questions about the event, and helped exhibitors manage queues, screenings and general information. Common opinion in feedback from the volunteers was that it was positive to be part of Open House Stockholm and that it was nice to network and meet new, interesting people. They also found it interesting to share stories and learn more about the festival and about the buildings. Getting inside information, hearing stories about the buildings and getting to know the exhibitors was also something that was greatly appreciated.

OHEU

Together with 10 other European OH cities, we have agreed on a 3-year collaboration, starting in February 2023. This will include annual meetings, volunteer exchange and join online activities. The purpose of the exchange is to learn and be inspired by each other. We believe that this cooperation is exactly the right time, to show solidarity and cohesion between countries during the ongoing instability in the world. OHEU will also be able to offer our volunteers an exchange abroad with travel and accommodation included! Here the volunteers get the chance to learn more about architecture and civil engineering issues in other countries. The volunteer exchange via OHEU will be called Volunteers Exchange program. Every year Open House Europe partner organizations will organize a Volunteers Exchange program that will create a precedent for direct knowledge exchange through collaboration. Selected city volunteers will be able to travel and volunteer in chosen Open House events. This program will help to implement international programs of local Open House events and foster collaboration among consortium partner organizations.