New high-rise apartment projects part of Melbourne's residential mix: Rob Stent
The recent baby boom in the City of Melbourne has meant existing community facilities are unable to cope with demand.
Interestingly, the boom is largely attributed to the CBD. If there was ever proof of the shift towards urbanised living: this has to be it.
New facilities are being planned to cater for the unexpected number of new babies in the municipality, covering the CBD and a number of Melbourne's inner suburbs. The facilities will provide postnatal care, and venues forparent programs and play groups.
It is well documented that a concentration of student populations can act as a precursor for urban renewal, which in turn provides the catalyst for others, such as single professionals and young urbanites to follow. The recent baby boom shows that new families are the next wave of central city apartment dwellers.
Whilst raising a family in the suburbs may be less expensive, for many this scenario is no longer the preferred option. With congestion bearing heavily on liveability and making for expensive and time-consuming car usage, the better option is to reside closer to the CBD.
As a result, diverse medium and high-rise apartment developments should be a focus, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, to manage both an increase in population and changes in housing preferences.
The future of housing architecture will need to be configured for a diverse range of households and consider demographic aspects such as age and culture. If we also believe affordability – in terms of both purchase price and ongoing cost of running – is a long-term consideration for a family, then we will require more from less as the size of dwellings reduces.
Future housing demand will necessitate greater flexibility in the design of small apartments, at a workable cost level, appealing to diverse household types. A pre-industrial era village or traditional old-fashioned neighbourhood offers each of its residents a chance to develop the network of bonds amongst each other that underpins a healthy community. In this setting, residents can work from home (65% of new businesses start in the home), study, raise a family, house extended families, retire or just hang out.
We will see vertical neighbourhoods consisting of a range of apartments attractive to a range of occupants. There may be roof top gardens for growing food or practicing tai-chi and book clubs or dining clubs can form, catering for the traditional community feel of earlier low rise developments.
While apartments as small as 25 to 30 square metres provide an entry point for home ownership and can accommodate an elderly relative, adolescent or adult child, apartments of 55 square metres can be configured to accommodate a living area, kitchen, bathroom and two other flexible spaces – one being a bedroom and the other possibly being a nursery enabling the families looking to live inner-city.
What this suggests is that the planning policies for our cities must have an inherent ability to dissect and discern direction and flexibly respond to challenges of social change and increasing diversity.
We as a society are changing too rapidly to recycle or rebrand conventional solutions or resort to stereotype prejudices about what constitutes appropriate housing standards, particularly when it comes to apartments and flats.
New development stemming from population growth requires an open mind by governments and planners. Higher density developments are one basic solution to restrict the waste of arable land, reliance on cars as primary transport and provide better-networked communities.
Other forms of inner city and central apartments have been generally accepted and are very much a part of the increasingly diverse society we now have. The fear of density remains palpable in determining planning policy.
Whilst it has been widely accepted that traditional two parent households will be marginally less over the next two decades compared with the number of single households, predicted to soar by 63.7%, little has been forecast in Australia of apartments being a desired family home.
Architects, developers and planners need to recognise this as an emerging residential typology. The apartment-as-family-home is part of Melbourne’s future housing mix.
Rob Stent is a director Melbourne-based architecture, interior and urban design practice Hayball and is a past president of the Victorian chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects. Among the buildings he has designed is Lend Lease’s completed Serrata apartment building in Docklands, one of Melbourne's first apartment buildings to achieve a four-star Green Star rating.
