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 High-rise apartments
Displaying 1 - 20 of 25 articles
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.
Avoid poorly ventilated parts of the building if you can. And always wear a mask when you open your door.
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.
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.
Much of our public housing stock is ageing and substandard. But we can learn from outstanding examples of retrofit projects that have transformed existing blocks into high-quality housing.
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.
With space at a premium, robotic furniture can transform a room in seconds. How will this affect our sense of belonging and feeling at home, when everything can change with a voice command?
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?
Almost half of apartment residents in Australia are families, but few high-rise dwellings were built with them in mind. Many find these apartments present barriers to building social connections.
The construction industry crisis didn’t happen overnight. Authorities have been on notice for years to fix the problems that now have the industry itself calling for better regulation.
Estimated costs for Victoria alone range from hundreds of millions to as much as $1.6 billion If work to rectify buildings fitted with combustible cladding isn’t well handled.
Years of regulatory failure are having direct impacts on the hip pockets of the many Australians who bought defective houses or apartments. It’s turning into a multibillion-dollar disaster.
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!
Architects, certifiers and engineers who work as consultants to builders are on notice about potential liability for the use of flammable cladding, but governments are also culpable for their actions.
Top contributors
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Adjunct professor of architecture, University of Adelaide
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Senior Lecturer in City Planning, UNSW Sydney
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Scientia Associate Professor, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
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Professor of Construction Management, University of Technology Sydney
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Senior Lecturer, School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University
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Professor, City Futures Research Centre, Faculty of the Built Environment, UNSW Sydney
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Director, Glowpear, Board member, ISDRS, Vice President, AHA and Senior Lecturer in Industrial Design, RMIT University
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Senior Lecturer, School of Health and Social Development, Deakin University
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Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of Studies for Construction Law, The University of Melbourne
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Lecturer in Health and Social Sciences, Deakin University
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Senior Lecturer in Urbanism, University of Sydney
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Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University
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Professor in Architecture and Director, Melbourne School of Design, The University of Melbourne
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Senior Lecturer in Industrial Design, UNSW Sydney
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ARC DECRA Fellow at the Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University
