The Irish Architecture Foundation has unveiled details of this year's Open House Dublin weekend, marking the third year of the event.

The scheme unlocks the doors to some of the most architecturally impressive buildings in the city, for one weekend.

The buildings, selected for their architectural quality and interest, will open to the public from Thursday 16 October to Sunday 19.

This year's theme the Changing City and Greater Dublin will focus on buildings, places and infrastructure that have transformed the wider city area.

These will range from energy-efficient apartment schemes to landmark civic offices; state-of-the-art corporate headquarters to lighthouses; and historic monuments to the original Dublin Airport building.

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Dublin City Council will be joined at the event by Ballymun Regeneration Ltd and the County Councils of Fingal, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and South County Dublin as event partners.

Organisers say the economic boom of the past fifteen years has "undoubtedly manifested itself in an architectural renaissance", and Open House Dublin will be looking at some of the key buildings and infrastructure that have emerged from this period.

The 2008 Open House programme features close to 140 buildings and events - almost double on last year - in a diverse, topical and vibrant programme.

A major new event in this year's programme is Open Debate - a public debate on 'Has Dublin changed for the better?' which takes place on Thursday 16 October in Liberty Hall.

Other new aspects of Open House Dublin 2008 include Open Space - an extended programme of walking tour and a visual arts programme Culturstruction - where four artists have been asked to create site-specific installations/performances to respond to the city's architecture.

All events are free of charge, and only a small proportion will require pre-booking.

Programme content has been devised by Dr. Sandra Andrea O’Connell, editor of Architecture Ireland and HOUSE architecture design magazines.

A full programme of events will be available, in print and online, at www.architecturefoundation.ie, in early October 2008.

(PR/JM)