Skip to content
Search
Close this search box.
  • Join
  • Login
  • Join
  • Login
  • Membership
    • Renew
    • Join
    • Practice (A+)
    • Member rewards
  • Online store
  • Explore Architecture
    • Find an architect
    • Working with an architect
    • Education & Standards
    • Living Architecture
    • Reading Architecture
    • Pathways to architecture
    • Archi Ed
    • Hearing Architecture podcast
    • Notable buildings
    • Venice Biennale
    • Open House Hobart
  • What’s On
    • Country Culture Community
    • FUTURE SHOCK: Designing City Resilience
    • Open House Hobart
    • Venice Biennale
    • All Events
  • Advocacy & News
    • Community Forum
    • Policy & Advocacy
    • Submission Library
    • Media Releases
    • News
    • NSW Design & Building Practitioners Act and Regulations
    • Sustainability and climate action
    • First Nations
    • Diversity & Equity
  • Awards, Prizes & Tours
    • 2023 National Architecture Awards Winners Gallery
    • Awards Program
    • Prizes
    • 2024 Dulux Study Tour
    • National and Chapter Architecture Awards Program
    • 2023 Gold Medal Tour
    • 2023 Smeg Tour
  • Preparing to register
  • CPD, Education & Resources
    • Overview
    • Wellbeing for architects
    • Purchase On Demand CPD
    • Face-to-Face CPD
    • Refuel CPD Courses
    • Practice Resources
    • National Mentoring Program
    • Showcase
    • Become a CPD Provider
  • Chapters
    • ACT
    • International
    • NSW
    • NT
    • QLD
    • SA
    • TAS
    • VIC
    • WA
  • EmAGN
    • About
    • Emerging Architect Prize
    • EmAGN Project Award
    • EmAGN Representatives
    • EmAGN Online Resources
    • Living Village Design Competition
  • SONA
    • Join
    • Beyond Uni
    • Advocacy
    • About
    • de-PICT
    • Member Benefits
    • Upscale
    • Super Studio 2023
    • Representatives
    • Representative Application
    • Study
    • Contact SONA
  • About Us
    • 2023 Annual General Elections – NOMINATIONS OPEN NOW
    • About the Institute
    • Board of Directors
    • National Council & Committees
    • Chapter Councils & Committees
    • Our Staff
    • Annual Reports
    • Work with Us
    • Contact Us
  • Partnerships
    • Corporate Partners
    • Supporting Partners
    • Partnership & Advertising Opportunities

Apartment design guidelines as architecture

  • 31 October 2022
Words by Allan Burrows and Arjuna Benson
Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Share on email
Breese Street by Milieu, designed by Breathe and DKO is carbon neutral in its operation – no gas. Every Breese Street resident receives 100% GreenPower | Photographer: Tom Ross

In 2016, the Victorian government implemented the Better Apartment Design Standards (BADS) into the Victoria Planning Provisions (VPP) and all its planning schemes.1

These were positioned as a corrective reaction to the proliferation of low-quality apartment stock that had been built in previous years – joining a host of other frameworks, regulations, and stratagems that collectively parametricise the formal constraints and potentials of our built environment. Although initially criticised by the Australian Institute of Architects for not specifying a minimum dwelling size and for not mandating the use of architects, our Victorian Chapter generally supported the initiative as a way to improve design outcomes.2

This piece is not a lament for the diminished role of the architect. Rather, we want to speculate on the opportunities for architecture that might appear through an examination of the relationship between the architect and these modulating frameworks.

By 2021, the BADS had been revised and rebranded as the Apartment Design Guidelines for Victoria (ADGV).

Like BADS, the ADGV have statewide applicability: they are made actionable and enforceable through references within both the VPP and all its underlying planning schemes – specifically, through new clauses 55.07 and 58. While retaining a similar focus on quality design outcomes, these new guidelines became even more explicitly architectural in their remit. They included new guidance for external walls and materials, along with updates to the standards for open space (both communal and private), landscaping, and integration with the street.

It is here that we find ourselves wondering: with all these new mandated standards, what is left for us to design? And, if the design guideline has become a high-resolution placeholder for architecture, what new design opportunities might exist for architects?

Of course, regulation as form is not new to architects: in the 1920s, for example, Hugh Ferriss rendered Manhattan’s setback envelopes as a series of moody, art-deco volumes.3 The condition that we deal with today, however, is vastly more complex and constrained. If we were to repeat Ferris’ analysis on the contemporary Melbourne apartment, we would need to illustrate a tangle of so many interlocking formal relationships and constraints that an x-ray of a near-complete building would emerge – a nearly-architecture.

How are we to conceptualise the nearly architecture mandated by our current suite of apartment design standards and guidelines? The urbanist Keller Easterling uses the word disposition to make a distinction between the object forms and active forms of our built environment.4 For Easterling, the object form is the tangible content of architectural production: the building. The active form, meanwhile, is composed of all the immaterial forces, existing conditions, and interests that together shape the potential for the building to exist: this site- and object-specific potential is the building’s disposition. (Here, she draws a parallel with media theorist, Marshall McLuhan, who “highlighted the difference between the declared content of media – music on the radio or videos on the internet – and the means by which the content was delivered.”) Indeed, with the increased architectural specificity of the ADGV – coupled with the increasing financialisaton of housing – the active and object forms of new Victorian apartment buildings are becoming indistinguishable; the building has become closely coupled with the form of its disposition.

Breese Street by Milieu, designed by Breathe and DKO | Photographer: Tom Ross

Consider any prospective site for mid- to high-rise residential development. Typically, the developer will have an idea of the net saleable area (NSA) required in order to make the venture profitable, even before an architect is engaged. The NSA can be thought of as a formula that is applied to the geometry of the site, resulting in a cellular three-dimensional volume that has been sculpted by planning limitations, such as setbacks and height limits. At this stage, the disposition of the project is explicitly formal, but this form does not have an author. Rather, it is an automated, volumetric consequence of the interaction of active forms. The role of the architect, then, is to leverage the potential of this active form to author some final object form: in other words, we must convert disposition into architecture. There are, in theory, many possible object forms that may arise from a single, situated active form. In practice, however, the increased architectural specificity of these regulatory active forms has led to fewer and fewer possible object forms.

Where once the volumetric form of a feasibility study would barely resemble a building, the new design standards for apartments (ADGV) mandated in Clause 58 now provide an architectural structure. The National Construction Code (NCC) and Australian Standards – other active forms contributing to a building’s disposition – cannot script buildings through translation alone, but through the structure of clause 58, their logics can be embedded prior to design. An undesigned building template can now be generated in relative autonomy.

Some lines of causality in the apartment provisions are obvious: room depth and ceiling height are bound by ratio; the dimensions of the kitchen are bound to the living room; bedrooms must connect to the building envelope for daylight access. But some lines of causality are less obvious. A window, for example, has obvious contingencies with the envelope of the building, and is thus indirectly related to property size, scale, and orientation – along with the building as an economic composition (NSA). Where natural ventilation is required (40% of apartments per floor), the minimum and maximum distances between openings provide an additional layer of spatial configuration to the apartment over the programmatic layout. This plays a role in the location, quality, and – arguably – the cultural and market understanding of the bathroom, which is now a by-product of other provisions. The discrete habitable container of the apartment – now a relatively finite constellation of parts – is then strictly patterned across and bound to floor plates in response to noise attenuation and apartment diversity standards. A minor adjustment to a single apartment design now has traceable architectural consequences throughout the entire building.

Through this complex, parametric part-to-whole relationship, the design of the object form of a building is preempted by the autonomous interactions of all the active forms at play – which over-constrain the building’s disposition, narrowing the scope of possible object forms. The legislative is now explicitly architectural.

This is not to say that our current (proliferating, tightly constrained) standards are not capable of producing good architecture: our experience is that good architects will always find a way to make good buildings, regardless of the constraints. But the increasing specificity of apartment design standards does result in a tightening of constraints, giving good architects fewer and fewer possibilities for innovative or novel design. Similarly, for the minimally compliant projects that make up the bulk of our state’s housing stock, buildings become generic, physical manifestations of their regulatory dispositions.

This repetition of a generic apartment model reinforces assumptions about the ideal dwelling. Today, the open-living typology is practically uncontested – bedroom and living room dimensions assert their sub-architectural componentry, which in turn reinforces entrenched sociocultural expectations; the TV is protected by the standards, while the piano and the home office go unrecognised. Suddenly, everything is rounded to its average; nothing is exemplary.

For the discipline and profession of architecture, the increasing architecturalisation of design standards has far-reaching consequences – including a growing perception among property developers and so-called PropTech (property technology) companies that architectural production can now be wholly automated. In Victoria and elsewhere, software is already being used to accelerate land speculation and feasibility processes. Through these new platforms, possible development parcels can be instantly identified by inputting orientation, size, proportion, zoning, overlays, proximity to public transport, and other spatially calculable considerations; design optioneering can be automated by manipulating desired NSA, building height, and other parameters – even architectural style. In theory, the automation of certain broad-strokes massing and feasibility analyses could free-up time (and budget) for architects to re-allocate elsewhere in a project. In practice, though, the co-opting of these tools by property developers only serve to maximise profits for developers while further minimising the architectural scope of work.

Rather than fretting about the automation of our profession, we see an opportunity here for the role of the architect to expand; to encompass designing the active form of a building, rather than just its object form. It is easy to imagine that the computational logics underpinning existing BIM and parametric software could be adapted and redeployed to also test variations of our design standards and guidelines (active forms), in addition to our buildings (object forms). Here, we suggest that the ADGV might be a useful pilot, given that it already closely calibrates a building with its disposition.

Perhaps software could allow us – architects, designers, planners, and spatial practitioners – to see (and manipulate) the spatial and formal consequences of different variations to design standards, guidelines, and codes. Perhaps standards need to be reimagined as dynamic and adaptive design tools, rather than static instruments.

What might this achieve?

  • Perhaps we would begin to see better interoperability and balance between spatial legislation, architecture, and property development. We suggest that the feasibility process might become a more equitable venture between these disciplines.
  • Perhaps we would be better placed to test the efficacy of design standards in real time, and then update our rules in response to feedback. We suggest a rapid-prototyping approach to planning, so that issues can be quickly corrected.
  • Perhaps we would be able to pilot novel and innovative housing models in isolated circumstances, without compromising the integrity of the wider planning system. We suggest that computational approaches could be leveraged to identify opportunities for calculated risk – the results of which could feed back into the wider system.
  • Perhaps we would even be able to implement multiple versions in parallel. We suggest that the simultaneous governance of a series of different (but complementary) generic models could allow for controlled heterogeneity in our cities.
  • And perhaps these shifting, adaptive standards would help the broader public build greater critical literacy about both planning and architecture – culminating in a more productive and expansive discourse. We suggest that the ongoing implementation of dynamic planning controls would encourage broader public debate about the formal and spatial consequences of planning-as-architecture, as citizens could see new buildings spring up in response to new standards or clauses.

Apartments in Victoria are only one example of growing rifts and tensions between the competing interests of capital, regulation, and design in the built environment. By contemplating the relationships and power structures between object forms and active forms, we suggest that architects may conceive of new ways to affect the city – but this demands a close, critical engagement with our present condition. As design standards and guidelines become increasingly architectural to safeguard quality design outcomes in minimally compliant projects, those of us with architectural expertise must become more involved in policy-making processes. Perhaps, rather than lamenting our diminishing roles, it is time – as Easterling suggests – to expand the role of the architect, to encompass design of the active forms of our buildings, in addition to their object forms in a manner where the interplay between them becomes a subject of our design.5

Notes

Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning. 2016. Better ApartmentsDesign Standards, State of Victoria.

Australian Institute of Architects. 2017. “AIA Comments on New Design Standards for Vic Apartments,” ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN (blog), May 9, 2017, https://www.architectureanddesign.com.au/news/new-design-standards-aim-toimprove-liveability-in.

Ferriss, Hugh., 1929. The Metropolis of Tomorrow. New York NY: Ives Washburn.

Easterling, Keller., 2014. Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space New York, NY: Verso: 13-14.

Easterling, Keller., 2021. Medium Design: Knowing How to Work on the World Verso Books: 38.

Allan Burrows RAIA Grad. is an architectural graduate at John Wardle Architects. He has led design studios at the University of Melbourne and RMIT University, researching architecture as a consequence of, and an agent within, interdisciplinary systems and institutions.

Arjuna Benson RAIA Grad. is a graduate of architecture, currently working at Sibling Architecture. He is a tutor at RMIT and has also taught at the University of Melbourne. Through his work, he is interested in the junctions between architectural speculation and reality.

Published online:
31 Oct 2022

Source:
Architect Victoria
Design for all life /
Architecture and planning
Edition 3
2022

Back to Reading Architecture

More from Architect Victoria

Yakimono: Russell & George

28 Nov 2023
A layered sensory experience, Russell & George’s Yakimono draws on the experience of a typical late-night Izakaya to plate-up a restaurant that is reminiscent of Japanese concepts, without ...
Read more

Valparaiso + architect Cazu Zegers

16 Oct 2023
Composed of forty-four hills and a flat area oriented to the bay, the busy and sometimes worn-down working port of Valparaiso, Chile, is a natural ...
Read more

Darebin Intercultural Centre: Sibling Architecture

4 Sep 2023
By prioritising community as the driving force behind their design, Sibling Architecture’s Darebin Intercultural Centre stands as a welcoming new community facility, aspiring to nurture meaningful ...
Read more

Guangzhou + architect Atelier Deshaus

27 Aug 2023
Guangzhou, my hometown and where my grandparents live, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. It is a bustling city with ...
Read more

Garden House: BKK Architects

14 Jul 2023
Garden House is an enduring home which successfully creates a spatial model that is specific to the couple occupying it (and their two cats). It ...
Read more

Deco House: Mihaly Slocombe

22 May 2023
Preserving the historic fabric of the original Art Deco building, Mihaly Slocombe have created a home filled with light. Providing room for a family to ...
Read more

Nightingale Anstey: Breathe

17 Apr 2023
Homes are complex places, and we expect a lot from them. It’s easy to forget the range of functions that they are often required to ...
Read more

Creating an underwater garden

13 Feb 2023
City skylines increasingly feature roofs and walls that are covered in foliage to trap stormwater and moderate internal climates. This approach to greening is now ...
Read more

Autumn House: Studio Bright

2 Feb 2023
The gardens of Autumn House are not only instrumental in gifting the clients the tranquil home they desired, but also act as an offering of ...
Read more

Skin deep

19 Jan 2023
I was making a left turn onto Lygon Street, towards East Brunswick, when my passenger, one of three founders of our Stockholm-based architecture practice, began ...
Read more

Arthur: Oscar Sainsbury Architects

5 Dec 2022
A central deck is not only Oscar Sainsbury Architects' solution to the site’s flooding overlay, but a core part of their resulting design. Oscar’s aspirations ...
Read more

La Mama Theatre Rebuild: Meg White with Cottee Parker Architects

24 Oct 2022
Tasked with capturing the identity and idiosyncrasies of a meaningful cultural space, the La Mama Theatre Rebuild by Meg White with Cottee Parker Architects illustrates ...
Read more

Sharing cities with nature, by design 

27 Sep 2022
As an urban ecologist, I specialise in the science and practice of nature conservation in cities. This strikes most people as unusual. Surely, nature conservation ...
Read more

Balfe Park Lane: Kerstin Thompson Architects

14 Jul 2022
Considered across the scales of the neighbourhood, building and apartment, Kerstin Thompson Architects’ recently completed Balfe Park Lane is a demonstration of medium-density housing that ...
Read more

Re-valuing

8 Jun 2022
Through process and approaches that engage with multiple notions of heritage including problematic ones of environmental and cultural destruction, architecture can participate in the widening ...
Read more

Maggie Edmond: Edmond & Corrigan

7 Jun 2022
Edmond & Corrigan has employed an incomparable number of young architects who have gone on to have prolific careers with their own practices or as ...
Read more

A crucible for new housing typologies

12 May 2022
Faded photos of public housing projects from the early 1980s line the corridor walls of the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, marking the time ...
Read more

Napier Street for Milieu: Freadman White

10 May 2022
Freadman White’s simultaneous development of Napier Street and Whitlam Place harnessed unique efficiencies and resulted in a highly efficient model for project delivery.
Read more

Amelia Borg, Kushagra Jhurani and Peter Elliott: How to get a job

3 Apr 2022
Early career professionals are often guided by a practice’s development guidelines. Many help by pairing graduates with an experienced graduate, registered architect, or even an ...
Read more

Lovell Burton: Springhill House and Barwon Heads House

31 Mar 2022
Lovell Burton grew organically from a conversation over many years. We share a common endeavour to shape the built environment with a social, environmental and ...
Read more
Instagram Youtube Linkedin-in Facebook-f Tiktok Pinterest
Chapters
  • ACT
  • International
  • NSW
  • NT
  • Queensland
  • SA
  • Tasmania
  • Victoria
  • WA
ARCHITECTURE.COM.AU
  • What’s On
  • Policy & Advocacy
  • Membership
  • Awards
  • CPD
  • About Us
  • SONA
The Institute
  • Join
  • Online Store
  • Member Portal
  • Partnership & Advertising Opportunities
  • Contact Us
  • Media Releases
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions

The Australian Institute of Architects acknowledges First Nations peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the lands, waters, and skies of the continent now called Australia.

We express our gratitude to their Elders and Knowledge Holders whose wisdom, actions and knowledge have kept culture alive.

We recognise First Nations peoples as the first architects and builders. We appreciate their continuing work on Country from pre-invasion times to contemporary First Nations architects, and respect their rights to continue to care for Country.

Read our Statement of Support for the Uluru Statement from the Heart and Constitutional Recognition and the Voice to Parliament.

© Australian Institute of Architects

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are as essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
SAVE & ACCEPT

This form is now closed.