First look inside BBC TV centre homes at White City: 950 flats set to go on sale at iconic White City HQ - one of London's biggest new neighbourhoods

This weekend, the historic former headquarters of the BBC will be opened up to the public for the first time as the initial phase of 950 homes carved from the complex goes on sale.

West London's most famous forecourt, familiar to TV audiences across the globe, has been remodelled as the centrepiece of a new 14-acre neighbourhood of apartments set among the Fifties architecture.

Dubbed White City's new "media village", Television Centre will also be home to vast modern office spaces, restaurants, shops and a cinema. Soho House will be unveiling a new hotel and private members club with a rooftop swimming pool, alongside a 25,000sq ft Cowshed spa and gym.

The scheme, designed by Paul Monaghan of Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, retains many of the building's Grade II-listed features as part of the design.

The first 432 homes of “Helios” apartments are being created within the distinctive circular-shaped block wrapped around the central courtyard and its familiar statue of Helios, the Greek sun god, which symbolises the radiation of television around the world. A new outer crescent of homes will mirror the inner ring, separated from it by gardens, while the original “stage door” entrance to Television Centre will be a 24-hour concierge lobby.

The new apartments are just the beginning of the transformation of a 145-acre site. More than £8 billion of investment is bringing over 5,000 homes, a new Imperial College campus, an expanded Westfield shopping mall and the largest-ever John Lewis department store.

The previously closed-off BBC compound is being opened up at the front, with new landscaped areas and a pedestrian route to Hammersmith Park.

Three TV studios will be retained elsewhere in the complex, with BBC Worldwide already on site. More BBC departments, including post production, arrive from next April, and the first phase of development will be completed by the end of next year.

On Saturday, the marketing suite and a show flat with furnishings by interior designer Suzy Hoodless will open to potential buyers by appointment.

Studio apartments are priced from £550,000, while one-bedroom apartments start at £650,000. Larger homes are priced from £1 million, rising to £7 million for one of the penthouse flats at the top of the Helios block, overlooking the entire forecourt.

A weekend food market at Television Centre will mark the launch on Saturday (April 23).

Viewings will be arranged by appointment through Strutt & Parker (020 7318 4677) or Savills (020 7409 8756), or register online at televisioncentre.com.

Video by Jenny Marc