Introducing the Open House Friends print commission

David Knight celebrates the Lammas Green Community Hall in the first of an annual print commission made to thank Open House Friends for supporting the charity.

Back in April, we put out a call for help - with Covid-19 stopping almost all of our sources of income, we turned to those who have enjoyed and believed in our work for the past three decades for support. Little did we know that by August we would have passed the 500 mark - we are hugely thankful to all of you for responding to our call.

One of the ways in which we are thanking you for this generous commitment is with the annual commission of a limited-edition print celebrating the themes of the festival, which will be delivered to all of our Open House Friends. This year, we are hugely pleased to announce a commission by Dr David Knight, co-founder of the Bethnal Green-based architecture studio DK-CM.

Celebrating the unassuming, ‘ordinary’ architecture that we may not realise is just around the corner, Knight has drawn the community hall of Lammas Green, a 1957 local authority housing estate in Sydenham Hill designed by McMorran and Whitby. Clustered around a village green, three terrace blocks are buffered from the road by larger blocks of flats, with the community hall slotting into this ensemble. The estate was Grade II listed in 1998.

“I draw buildings and places that point to alternative ways of doing architecture, settlement and community. Lammas Green by Donald McMorran is a public housing estate in Lewisham that avoided architectural dogma and rhetoric in favour of making a place that feels sociable, progressive, generous and approachable. I have drawn its community centre, which is now home to a nursery school. This building, with larger windows and rooms than the rest of the state, sits in a quiet corner as part of a row of houses and is also connected - by an arched loggia - to the block of apartments. It embodies in a humble way the ideals of the wider estate and forms a gateway to them.” - David Knight

The print was printed in Fish Island by Duplikat Press using teal and gold inks on 170gsm paper made from recycled coffee cups.

All Friends will receive an edition of the print delivered to their door, along with an Open House Key Badge. If you would like to join them, click here to find out more.