I am noticing increased construction of Apartments in Melbourne and Sydney.
I think considering that once built, apartments will last for a long while… affecting many citizens that live in it. So if there is a problem with apartments (e.g. Too small apartment or missing services) then fixing the problem will be extremely hard for many decades.
Thus it will be of interest, especially for Sydney and Melbourne to implement policies to help address this ahead of time.
To spark the conversation, here is some examples.
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Perhaps a problem with high density living is the issue of alienation and being disconnected from other people. Design of living spaces in Apartment will be one aspect to combating this issue ahead of time. E.g. Maybe we should mandate that there are certain amount of communal spaces in new apartments that is dedicated for people in apartments to have community events (and increase contact points where people can interact with eachother).
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To help reduce waste and encourage reuse, maybe building should be encouraged to have a room near the waste bin area, for placing working items that people wanted to give away for free.
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To encourage recycling, maybe bin chute should include a way to seperate various rubbish type, instead of having people carry recyclables down?
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Is there any policies that should be done to futureproof apartments?
I’m sure you have other ideas of policies that address problems in apartment design that are hard to fix, after the apartment building is built. Especially in safety and quality of life concerns.