The first Newcastle Open has been organised by the AAA Tour Leaders and will be held on Sunday 18 November from 9am-5pm.

20 of Newcastle’s most interesting modern and contemporary buildings will be open and available to be toured for two hours with one of the AAA guides.

Amongst those open are a trio of highly distinctive buildings in Civic, including the classical art deco Town Hall, University House by Emile Sodersten and the circular Administration Building designed by Romberg Boyd Wilson & Suters.

Also open will be rarely seen private houses and apartments.

Numbers are limited.

Cost: $25.00 – day pass, $5.00 students, AAA members free

Bookings call: 02 4925 2265 or 0417 087 209

Collect tickets and programmes from the Lock-Up, 90 Hunter Street, Newcastle. More details here.

Summer’s here and the daylit evenings are with us. So a leisurely stroll after work is a pleasant way to learn more about the city’s architecture.

Twilight walks are held every Tuesday and Wednesday at 6.00pm starting on 6 November through to 5 December.

The popular Harbour Edge Walk that explores the buildings beside the water is being held on Sundays at 2.00pm on 11 and 18 November.

All the city based walking tours go from Customs House, 31 Alfred Street, Circular Quay. Download a booking form here.

Midweek tours of Sydney architecture are being offered for the first time by the AAA during October.

Starting at Customs House, Circular Quay, these tours are being held on Wednesdays departing at 3.00pm.

Book now for the Wednesday tours on 10, 17 or 24 October by downloading the booking form.

The inaugural Sydney Architecture Festival that was held yesterday 1 October was an astounding success, as you can see by this picture it attracted plenty of attention.

Customs House at Circular Quay where the activities were centred reported visitor numbers of 4,547.

All the AAA tours were packed to capacity, with groups of people jostling to be included in the 14 tours offered throughout the day.

The AAA Volunteer Tour Leaders did a magnificent job, taking many more people on each tour than is usual to ensure that everyone had the opportunity to find out more about their city’s architecture.

The Festival talks were focussed on Zero Carbon and much attention centred around the final talk of the day with 15 year old high school student Alastair Wadlow calling on Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull to sign the Kyoto treaty.

In the morning, school children took over the ground floor of Customs House with models and drawings from the Kids Design Challenge. In the afternoon the younger architects took over with Iron Architect, when four teams designed their solutions to the problem of an extra 500,000 people arriving in Sydney following a climatic disaster.

There were free magazines in the forecourt as well as childrens’ activities and an attempt at the world’s longest drawing.

Tone Wheeler spruiks for architecture

Emergency Architects put up a display of their extraordinary work in the Solomon Islands and the exhibition of the National Gallery on the upper level of Customs House ensured there were lots of things for all the visitors to see and do on World Architecture Day.