Are All Apartments Equal? An Investigation of Contemporary Apartment Design Quality by Neighbourhood-Level Socioeconomic Disadvantage

Figures & data

Table 1. Overview of apartment building sample.

Building characteristics	Overall	High disadvantage	Mid disadvantage	Low disadvantage
	(n = 172)	(n = 59)	(n = 51)	(n = 62)
	n (%)	n (%)	n (%)	n (%)
Distance to CBD
<5 km	76 (44.2)	17 (28.8)	25 (49.0)	34 (54.8)
5-10 km	25 (14.5)	12 (20.3)	5 (9.8)	8 (12.9)
10-15 km	39 (22.7)	9 (15.3)	2 (3.9)	10 (16.1)
15 + km	32 (18.6)	21 (35.6)	19 (37.3)	10 (16.1)
City
Perth	69 (40.1)	28 (47.5)	19 (37.3)	24 (38.7)
Sydney	57 (33.1)	18 (30.5)	15 (29.4)	22 (35.5)
Melbourne	46 (26.7)	13 (22.0)	17 (33.3)	16 (25.8)
Apartments per building^1	61.2 (43.6)	49.6 (31.6)	63.6 (41.4)	70.3 (52.4)
Floors per building^1	7.0 (4.9)	5.8 (3.2)	7.45 (5.2)	7.7 (5.7)
Buildings per complex^1	2.1 (1.4)	2.3 (1.5)	2.1 (1.4)	1.9 (1.1)

¹ Mean (standard deviation) presented for continuous variables

Figure 1. Building-level policy implementation scores for Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth by neighbourhood-level socioeconomic disadvantage.

Table 2. Apartment-level design measures for Sydney, Melbourne and Perth by neighbourhood-level socioeconomic disadvantage.

	All Cities			Perth			Sydney			Melbourne
	High	Mid	Low	High	Mid	Low	High	Mid	Low	High	Mid	Low
Design objectives	Mean (SE)	Mean (SE)	Mean (SE)	Mean (SE)	Mean (SE)	Mean (SE)	Mean (SE)	Mean (SE)	Mean (SE)	Mean (SE)	Mean (SE)	Mean (SE)
Number of bedrooms^1	1.8 (0.0)	1.6 (0.0)***	1.7 (0.0)*	1.8 (0.0)	1.7 (0.0)	1.8 (0.0)	2.1 (0.1)	1.7 (0.1)***	1.8 (0.1)***	1.6 (0.1)	1.5 (0.0)^‡	1.6 (0.1)
% Habitable Rooms with a Window^2	99.3 (0.5)	99.3 (0.5)	98.3 (0.5)	98.8 (0.9)	98.5 (0.9)	99.3 (0.8)	99.5 (0.6)	100 (0.7)	98.3 (0.5)	99.9 (1.2)	99.6 (1.0)	97.0 (1.2)^‡
Solar hours to main aspect^3	3.4 (0.2)	3.3 (0.2)	3.2 (0.2)	3.4 (0.2)	3.2 (0.3)	3.1 (0.2)	4.0 (0.4)	3.6 (0.4)	3.9 (0.3)	2.8 (0.3)	3.0 (0.3)	2.8 (0.3)
Courtyard area (m^2)^4	28.9 (3.5)	24.6 (3.5)	27.5 (3.2)	21.7 (5.1)	31.1 (5.0)	25.2 (4.8)	38.2 (6.7)	25.6 (7.1)	34.2 (5.1)	29.0 (6.0)	15.2 (5.5)^‡	21.9 (6.0)
Balcony area (m^2)^5	16.0 (1.1)	16.3 (1.1)	16.2 (1.0)	15.7 (1.5)	17.0 (1.6)	20.2 (1.5)*	21.8 (2.2)	21.3 (2.6)	17.2 (1.7)^‡	11.4 (1.6)	11.2 (1.5)	10.1 (1.6)
No. parking bays^6	1.1 (0.4)	1.0 (0.4)	1.2 (0.4)*	1.1 (0.1)	1.1 (0.1)	1.4 (0.1)***	1.2 (0.0)	1.1 (0.1)	1.2 (0.0)	1.0 (0.1)	0.9 (0.1)	0.9 (0.1)
1-bed apart area (m^2)^7	54.6 (1.6)	55.2 (1.5)	56.0 (1.4)	53.0 (2.1)	55.0 (2.0)	56.7 (1.9)	66.7 (3.2)	64.5 (3.0)	58.9 (2.0)*	48.9 (2.9)	50.0 (2.5)	56.9 (3.0)^‡
Bedroom 1 area (m^2)^8	13.3 (0.3)	13.0 (0.3)	13.2 (0.3)	12.6 (0.4)	12.9 (0.5)	13.6 (0.4)^‡	15.8 (0.6)	14.0 (0.7)*	14.2 (0.4)*	12.2 (0.4)	12.3 (0.4)	11.9 (0.4)
Open plan living area depth (m)^9	6.8 (0.2)	7.0 (0.2)	7.2 (0.2)	6.8 (0.2)	7.5 (0.3)^‡	7.4 (0.2)^‡	7.5 (0.3)	7.2 (0.4)	7.4 (0.3)	6.3 (0.4)	6.3 (0.3)	6.6 (0.4)
Living area width (m)^10	3.8 (0.1)	3.8 (0.1)	3.9 (0.1)	3.8 (0.1)	4.0 (0.1)	4.0 (0.1)*	4.2 (0.1)	3.9 (0.2)^‡	4.1 (0.1)	3.5 (0.1)	3.4 (0.1)	3.5 (0.1)
Northerly aspect^11	0.2 (0.0)	0.3 (0.0)	0.2 (0.0)	0.1 (0.0)	0.3 (0.1)*	0.2 (0.1)	0.4 (0.1)	0.1 (0.1)*	0.3 (0.1)	0.3 (0.1)	0.3 (0.1)	0.2 (0.1)
Dual aspects^12	0.3 (0.0)	0.4 (0.0)*	0.3 (0.0)	0.1 (0.0)	0.4(0.1)**	0.3 (0.1)*	0.7 (0.1)	0.6 (0.1)	0.6 (0.1)^‡	0.1 (0.0)	0.1 (0.0)	0.1 (0.0)

High, High neighbourhood disadvantage; Mid, Mid-level neighbourhood disadvantage; Low, Low neighbourhood disadvantage.

Differences between high disadvantage areas (the reference group) and the other two groups: ‡p < 0.1, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. Bold denotes significant p-value.

Measure applicable to a subset of apartments with available data or those with the design feature of interest:¹n = 10,271; ²n = 10,245; ³n = 10,255; ⁴n = 1,005; ⁵n = 8,809; ⁶n = 9,377; ⁷n = 3,570; ⁸n = 9,994; ⁹n = 10,006; ¹⁰n = 9,894; ¹¹n = 10,271; ¹²n = 10,270.

Data Availability

Data will be made available on request from the first author.