Governments have been pushing the construction of apartment towers for years to help housing affordability and availability, but people don’t want to live in them.
Articles on Apartment buildings
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Apartment defects continue to be a problem in Australia as builders prioritise cost over safety. Our research shows there are ways they can do both.
We’ve just finished a three-year investigation into how we can rebuild Australians’ trust in residential building construction – including the strata management industry. Here’s where we’d start.
Too often, signs of trouble are ignored until a problem becomes a crisis. Here are some clear warning signs residents should watch for.
Simply rezoning land for higher density is not enough to achieve the planning goal of transforming low-density and car-centric neighbourhoods into mixed-use and walkable neighbourhoods.
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.
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.
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.
Top contributors
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Professor, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW
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Adjunct Professor of Architecture, University of Technology Sydney
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Senior Lecturer in City Planning, UNSW
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ARC DECRA Fellow at the Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University
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Professor, City Futures Research Centre, Faculty of the Built Environment, UNSW
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Professor of Construction Management, University of Technology Sydney
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Senior Research Fellow, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney, UNSW
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Professor and Research Chair in Inclusive Societies, University of Sheffield
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Associate professor in Social and Political Sciences, University of Technology Sydney
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Associate professor in urbanism, University of Sydney
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Lecturer in Construction and Property, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Geographical Information Science, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland
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Professor of Structural Engineering, Drexel University
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PhD Candidate, School of Engineering, Deakin University
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Associate Professor, Deakin University