Exploring the design, quality and use of communal areas in apartment developments

ABSTRACT

Population growth and urbanisation are contributing to the densification of cities globally, including a proliferation of apartment developments. While many developments include shared spaces and facilities, little is known about their design, quality or use. Using a novel desktop audit approach, we objectively identified communal area design features and examined their association with residents’ use of communal areas in apartment developments (n = 113) across Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. For residents with outdoor areas (n = 1039), use was associated with ten features, including greenery, pools and seating. For residents with indoor areas (n = 283), use was associated with four features, including a ‘green’ outlook and ground floor location. Features were combined into quality scores, where each unit increase was associated with greater odds of outdoor (OR = 1.37, 95% CI = 1.28–1.47) and indoor (OR = 1.91, 95% CI = 1.52–2.42) area use. These results suggest that the delivery of high-quality communal areas can encourage use, which in turn, may have implications for residents’ social opportunities and outcomes. The findings also have policy and design implications, suggesting that the provision of communal space alone may not be enough to encourage use without the design features or amenities that appeal to residents.

KEYWORDS:

• Apartment buildings
• communal area quality
• design characteristics
• communal area use
• Australia

This article is related to:

Research for city practice

Acknowledgments

AK is supported by an RMIT Research Stipend Scholarship (Healthy Liveable Cities Group) and an AHURI Postgraduate Scholarship Top-up (17/PRO/817); BGC by a National Health and Medical Research Council Senior Principal Research Fellowship (#1107672); LG by the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Healthy, Liveable Communities (#1061404) and the NHMRC Australian Prevention Partnership Centre (# 9100001); PH by a Healthway Research Fellowship (# 32992) and the Australian Urban Design Research Centre; and SF by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) (DE160100140) and RMIT Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellowship.

The High Life Study is funded by the Western Australian (WA) Health Promotion Foundation (Healthway; #31986). Study collaborators providing in-kind support include the Department of Planning Lands and Heritage (WA), Office of the Government Architect (WA), Government Architect NSW (GANSW), Planning Institute of Australia (PIA), Landcorp and Heart Foundation. The assistance of apartment residents, resident associations, architects, developers and local government in the study is gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Geolocation information

Melbourne, Australia

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) [DE160100140)]; Healthway Healthway Research Fellowship [# 32992]; National Health and Medical Research Council Centre for Research Excellence in Healthy, Liveable Communities [#1061404]; National Health and Medical Research Council Senior Principal Research Fellowship [#1107672]; National Health and Medical Research Council Australian Prevention Partnership Centre [# 9100001]; AHURI [Postgraduate Scholarship Top-up (17/PRO/817)]; Australian Urban Design Research Centre [Australian Urban Design Research Centre]; RMIT University [RMIT Research Stipend Scholarship (Healthy Liveable Cities Group)]; RMIT University [RMIT Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellowship].

Notes on contributors

Alexandra Kleeman

Alexandra Kleeman is a postgraduate researcher in the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT University. With a professional background in public health, Alexandra’s current research interests include the design and provision of high-density housing and the impact this form of housing has on residents’ health and social outcomes.

Billie Giles-Corti

Billie Giles-Corti is an urban planning and health professor in the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT University. Her research focusses on city planning and health; and for the last 8 years she and her team have been conceptualising, measuring and studying the health and transport behaviour impacts of urban liveability.

Lucy Gunn

Lucy D. Gunn is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre of Urban Research at RMIT University. Her research interests focus on understanding the relationship between the built environment and health (e.g., health impact assessments of transport behaviour and the built environment, economic evaluations of urban and built environments).

Paula Hooper

Paula Hooper is the Co-Director of the Australian Urban Design Research Centre, The University of Western Australia. Her multidisciplinary research work studies the impact of the built environment and urban design on health and wellbeing.

Sarah Foster

Sarah Foster is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University. Her research focuses on furthering our understanding of the impact of the urban environment on a range of social and health outcomes. She currently leads a research program examining the policy and practice of designing healthy equitable higher density communities.