IT’S ACCESS-ALL-AREAS time again, as this year’s Open House programmes are launched.

Details of the buildings that will be opened to the public this year will be available from next Tuesday evening after the official launch (details on www.architecture foundation.ie).

The Dublin weekend runs from October 8th-11th and the concept moves west for the first time this year as Galway comes on board. Its first Open House weekend will run from October 15th-18th.

Some 40 per cent of the Dublin programme is new this time around so the estimated 15,000 people who got up-close-and-personal with buildings, such as government offices and private homes, in previous years will have no need to revisit past haunts.

One newcomer this year is the sensational Ballynoe house in Howth designed by McCullough Mulvin Architects who took an existing house, lopped off the top floor and built a new timber cover for the whole thing.

The resulting home has a fabulous open-plan interior upstairs and traditional-sized bedrooms downstairs.

It is all set in a labour-of-love garden, complete with vegetable garden and duck pond, beside the sea.