Turning excess office space into apartments isn’t a panacea for the housing shortage, but it’s producing thousands of new units yearly and is more sustainable and economical than new construction.
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Articles on Apartments
Displaying 1 - 20 of 52 articles
Apartment residents need more sustainable, climate-adapted designs. They shouldn’t have to depend on costly, high-emissions air conditioning to remain comfortable and healthy.
Small suburbs have a track record of blocking new housing. Two urban policy experts explain why that’s a problem and what metro areas could do about it.
Illinois passed the latest law requiring new apartment buildings to be wired for EV chargers. Now apartment communities are figuring out the best ways to make shared charging work for everyone.
The goal of a ‘slum-free India’ would benefit residents of informal settlements more if the housing being built drew on the features of their old neighbourhoods that made their lives better.
In order to ensure new multi-unit housing prioritizes comfort and health, future residents and building owners should know what design choices to advocate for.
In parts of Sydney, families occupy half the apartments and many value their convenient location. Yet, despite a surge in development, most apartments are one or two bedrooms and not family-friendly.
Apartments have lower waste recycling rates than houses, which means the growing numbers of apartment dwellers could add to Australia’s waste management crisis. But there are solutions to the problem.
The race to build the tallest timber building makes the news, but mid-rise construction is where using timber can make the biggest sustainability impact.
Analysis of 5,500 apartment developments across Australia found many individual units were far below the average energy ratings for the complex as a whole.
Affordable housing has become a middle-class problem, and Ontario’s latest housing report reflects an approach that continues to marginalize those with the greatest need.
Avoid poorly ventilated parts of the building if you can. And always wear a mask when you open your door.
Buying off the plan comes with risks and challenges — but there are six key steps consumers can do to help protect themselves. Systemic and policy change is also urgently needed.
A single open-air car park takes up land that could potentially house hundreds of people.
Since the Grenfell Tower fire claimed 72 lives in 2017, Australia has identified flammable cladding on more than 3,400 buildings. Despite apartment owners’ fears and rising costs, few have been fixed.
The rise of build-to-rent development will affect a lot of Australians. Despite the rosy promises, tax, design, planning and tenancy reforms will be needed to avoid the potential pitfalls.
Identifying and fixing apartment defects can be challenging, especially as they’re often the shared responsibility of all owners in the building. A new guide aims to help navigate the pitfalls.
If more people work from home and shop online, many commercial buildings won’t be needed any longer. What will be needed is affordable housing, and these buildings can be converted to meet this need.
Orders to fix serious defects, even up to ten years after completion, and to delay the occupation certificate developers need to sell apartments until they’re fixed, gives regulators real teeth.
Apartments house one in ten Australians, including a higher share of low-income households than other housing types. A new study identifies why some high-density neighbourhoods work better than others.
Top contributors
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Scientia Associate Professor, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
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Adjunct professor of architecture, University of Adelaide
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Professor, City Futures Research Centre, Faculty of the Built Environment, UNSW Sydney
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Senior Lecturer in City Planning, UNSW Sydney
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Professor of Construction Management, University of Technology Sydney
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Research Associate, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
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Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, UTS | Senior Research Fellow, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney, UNSW Sydney
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Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of Studies for Construction Law, The University of Melbourne
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Senior Lecturer, Discipline of Geography and Sustainability, School of Health and Society, University of Wollongong
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Associate professor, University of Technology Sydney
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ARC DECRA Fellow at the Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University
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Professor and Research Chair in Inclusive Societies, University of Sheffield
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Senior Lecturer in Industrial Design, UNSW Sydney
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Lecturer in Urban Studies and Planning, University of Sheffield
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Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning & Design, Monash University
