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.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Articles on Apartment buildings
Displaying 1 - 20 of 23 articles
Ageing brick apartment buildings of two to three storeys are being redeveloped in many suburbs. Typically, they are knocked down to be replaced by much bigger developments. But here’s an alternative.
Australian plumbing standards require apartment buildings to have systems designed for three times their actual peak water use. This can lead to costly water damage on top of inflated building costs.
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.
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.
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.
Proposals to improve the capital’s urban design and density must also take account of the city’s unique streetscapes.
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.
The proposed law does little to give people confidence in the apartments they buy. And it utterly neglects the role of architects and on-site inspections in delivering sound buildings.
Nearly half of apartment residents are now families with children whose quality of life suffers if their neighbourhoods don’t provide the spaces and activities they need to thrive.
Governments and regulators assume compliance with building regulations will restore public confidence. But complying with the National Construction Code won’t fix many common defects.
The difficulty of finding out about building defects creates an information deficit that threatens public confidence and stability in the apartment market. NSW has begun work on a solution.
Unsafe apartments are being evacuated as confidence plummets – even the author of a report commissioned by building ministers wouldn’t buy a new apartment. What will it take for governments to act?
The delay in adopting a national approach to building industry reform, based on a report received more than a year ago, typifies official neglect of the impacts of uncertainty on the affected people.
Under the new code, buildings are hardly likely to differ measurably from their fault-ridden older siblings and can still fall short of a six-star rating. It’s possible they may have no stars!
While Opal Tower residents are more badly affected than most, up to 80% of multi-unit buildings have serious defects. Here’s what government can do right now to fix the industry.
For a nation in the grips of a housing crisis, you’d expect high-rise developments to be good news – unfortunately not.
There are thousands of empty parking spots in cities. So what can we do to make better use of this space?
Top contributors
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Adjunct professor of architecture, University of Adelaide
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Scientia Associate Professor, City Futures Research Centre, 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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Professor, City Futures Research Centre, Faculty of the Built Environment, UNSW Sydney
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ARC DECRA Fellow at the Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University
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Professor, and Dean of Law, Griffith University
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Senior Lecturer in Urbanism, University of Sydney
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Chair in Applied Regional Economics, Hunter Research Foundation Centre, University of Newcastle
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Senior Research Fellow, Healthy Urban Environments (HUE) Collaboratory / City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
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Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning & Design, Monash University
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Professor and Research Chair in Inclusive Societies, University of Sheffield
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Research Associate, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
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Associate professor, University of Technology Sydney
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Research Associate, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
