Last week Greenland again participated in the annual Open House festival, hosting a day of fully-booked tours at its historic award-winning Ram Quarter development in southwest London.
Tour size limits were raised this year, and consequently more visitors than ever before attended. Tours were also full booked within a day of tickets being released. Visitors met in Ram Quarter's picturesque Bubbling Well Square and were greeted by a representative of the Greenland. the developer which built and owns the site. EPR Architects, which designed the site's mixed-use residential and commercial masterplan, led each tour. Visitors walked up the development's central Boulevard, and and then looped back down the development's pleasant riverwalk, and finished with a glimpse of the site's historic Victorian beam engines - the only beam engines in the world of their type still in working condition and in their original location. The architect introduced the various stages of development, including the consultation and planning processes with the local authorities; construction, and the thinking behind the colours and materials used in the bricks and roofing; how best to preserve the site's heritage, history and listed buildings; and how a site can become a new hub for residents, businesses, events and activities in the local community and beyond.
Ram Quarter is the UK's oldest continuously-operating brewery. Brewing is documented to have taken place since at least 1533 (but almost certainly earlier), and Ram Quarter was for almost two centuries the headquarters of renowned UK brewer Young's, from its founding in the 1830s until Young's left the site in 2007. Ram Quarter is now home to a Heritage Centre in one of its listed buildings, which tells the history of the site and its brewing. The Heritage Centre was not included in the Open House tours this year in preference to a greater focus on the architecture and design of the site. Tours at the Heritage Centre can be booked < here >,
The visitors at this year's Open House tours were highly engaged and asked many questions. Ram Quarter looks forward to offering new visitors the opportunity to tour the site at suitable occasions next year.
To mark its inclusion again this year in the Open House festival, Greenland again ran its popular Photography Competition (entry now closed). Entrants were encouraged to take their own image of the development's design and architecture and to describe in a few words what they found striking about it. EPR Architects was invited to judge the entries. The winner will be announced in early October, and will enjoy an evening of free beer and pizza at Sambrook's brewery taproom.