Our team includes a previous Open House Dublin (OHD) Programme Coordinator and volunteers, so suffice to say we have been long-term fans of both OHD the event and the design created by Workgroup. It had evolved over 14 years to become the highlight of the architectural calendar. Our brief was to create stronger and more obvious links between OHD and the Irish Architecture Foundation (IAF), the organisation who delivers it. To achieve this we chose to revert typographically back to a time when the OHD brand used the IAF typeface – Section. The addition of red to the colour palette helped to enliven the material without overpowering the familiar and well established cyan.
With our eye on the future development of the brand, we created a system using the simple house shape which can be filled with stylised architectural hatching or imagery, and built up into a host of structures. This was particularly interesting when brought to life in motion on social media and at launch events. A range of material including printed maps, outdoor advertising and promotional material created a cohesive look and feel which helped IAF increase their brand awareness amongst visitors. We also designed and built a brand new website…
In 2019, Irish Architecture Foundation’s (IAF) Open House Dublin (OHD) would have a full-time coordinator for the first time. This change would enable OHD to have much more activity throughout the year and beyond the OHD weekend itself. With this in mind, we set out to create a new website which not only enhanced people’s experience of the weekend of events but also created a platform to create much more editorial content. Redesigning the site from scratch, we added a host of new features, integrating google maps across the site. We brought a new facility to group building types, enabled chosen curators to share their personal programme highlights.
Future plans include unlocking the wealth of architectural content in the OHD archive, approaching it’s 15th year, with at least 100 buildings per year, it represents a unique snapshot of Dublin architecture. Over 1000 past buildings and their architects will be listed and linked, giving the site a new lease of life.
