Busy traffic corridors such as Canterbury Road, Princes Highway and the Pacific Highway are lined with squat, repetitive residential complexes built close to the road that unsurprisingly have empty ground floor shopfronts.
The building defects and shoddy construction practices that led to the disastrous Opal Tower, Mascot Towers and countless other development outrages across Sydney have also shaken confidence in the quality of new apartment buildings.
Arterial roads in Sydney are lined with bulky apartment blocks that all look the same.Credit: James Brickwood
Bagging Sydney’s architecture is a time-honoured tradition: Harry Seidler’s Blues Point Tower, completed in 1962, made former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet’s list of buildings he wanted to demolish. “A depressing blight on a pristine harbour,” he wrote in 2020. “The best thing about it is, when you’re inside, you can’t see it.”
Perrottet’s hit list also included social housing complexes the Greenway Apartments in Milsons Point and the Sirius building in The Rocks, which was controversially sold off to developers for $150 million in 2019.
Architect and former City of Sydney councillor Philip Thalis says residential buildings up to eight storeys should be built instead of “these clusters of towers across the metro skyline – totems of developers’ manipulation of planning and profits”.
“There certainly are well-designed buildings being built too, but they tend to be in the minority unfortunately,” he says.
Philip Thalis has called for an end to clusters of bulky towers dominating the Sydney skyline.Credit: James Alcock
Thalis says the blame for poorly designed apartment buildings – big, bulky buildings he has previously dubbed “Godzillas in the suburbs” – begins with developers opting for a “cheaper and compliant architect”.
He also points to poor planning and the inflexible application of abstract rules with little interest in design quality.
“We’re hopeful that the Labor government will dust it off and review and implement the suggested changes, to ensure that apartments across the entire economic spectrum are great places to live,” Haddow says.
Haddow says NSW has the best quality apartments being built in Australia because it has the most detailed regulations.
The Lumina apartment development at Penrith, an example of good design.
“If you go to Paris or Barcelona, by and large apartment buildings in those cities have a level of design consistency – precisely because of the culture and climate,” he says.
Oldfield says mediocre apartments in Sydney are the product of a development model in which architects design for developers who seek to maximise their financial return.
“Often those that purchase the apartments won’t be living there and, instead, are investors,” he said. “That means there’s limited opportunities for architects to engage directly with the people who will actually live in an apartment building, and design it for their specific needs. That’s why we end up with generic apartments.”
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Shaun Carter, a past president of the NSW branch of the Australian Institute of Architects, said in 2019 tall, thin towers are preferable, but squat buildings are cheaper to construct: “The less external envelope you have, the less glass, the less you have to insulate and waterproof and the less expensive materials you use.”
Developers aren’t happy either, blaming complicated rules that increase construction costs, reduce consumer choice and lead to cookie cutter blocks.
Steve Mann, NSW chief executive of developers’ lobby group Urban Development Institute of Australia, says the strict application of the apartment design guide by council planners forces all apartment buildings into a similar form: “It discourages innovation and individuality in design.”
Mann says it is important to have basic minimum requirements for the health and safety of apartments, but design guidelines should be reformed by the Minns government “if they are serious about tackling the housing supply and affordability crisis.”
“It is firstly meant to be a guide but is applied as strict development standards, resulting in homogenous cookie-cutter outcomes,” he says. “It also adds significantly to the cost of building new apartments, impacting affordability.”
The NSW Productivity Commission in its 2020 Green Paper said the design guidelines imposed economic costs by “unnecessarily restricting” the number and diversity of developments that may be built.
“This includes the overly complicated cross ventilation requirements, excessive overshadowing and sun path time and dates as well as apartment size,” Mann said. “Some home buyers would be willing to trade apartment size and light for affordability.”
Urban Taskforce chief executive Tom Forrest says there have been significant improvements in the design and construction of apartment buildings in Sydney thanks to NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler, who was appointed by the Berejiklian government in 2019 following a series of scandals over the shoddy construction of apartments.
Forrest also says bureaucracy has led to a cookie-cutter style of apartment building in Sydney.
Arkadia in the Sydney suburb of Alexandria under construction.
“The overly prescriptive apartment design guidelines and development control plans, along with their rigid application by many councils, result in pattern architecture with little opportunity for rising innovation,” he says. “It is wrong to blame developers for this – this is the result of prescriptive regulatory control.”
But the news is not all bad. Oldfield offers three examples – Jolyn Place in Rosebery, Arkadia in Alexandria and Verve in Newcastle – of high-quality apartment buildings.
“They also only use one or two materials carefully and with craft,” he says.
Oldfield is less keen on the Lego-like Meriton Suites in Zetland and multi-coloured apartment complexes in Ryde: “There seems to be a spate of apartments in Sydney that try to use several different materials at the same time to break down the bulky scale, and this rarely works.”
Jolyn Place in Rosbery gets an honourable mention for good design.
Oldfield says regulations governing the design of apartments have lifted the quality of the poorest developments.
“But I also think it’s stifled design innovation, which has left us with too many generic apartment blocks,” he says. “I don’t think they need an overhaul, but they do need to be revisited.”
Oldfield wants a move away from long corridors with apartments on each side – an approach that contributes to “bulk” and limits ventilation and lighting because apartments back onto corridors rather than outer walls with windows
“I’d like to see more design innovation in apartments in Sydney, with shallower floor plans, fewer units accessed from cores, more dual aspect units, and even a return of things like shared deck access apartments,” he says, pointing to The Arc apartments in Bondi.
The Arc apartments in Bondi goes against the grain.
Architect and City of Sydney councillor HY William Chan says input from urban design experts and the council’s competitive design policy has led to more thoughtfully designed buildings such as the Greenland Centre residential tower in Bathurst Street in Sydney’s CBD.
“It leads the way on the outdoor living room typology for high-rise apartments, uniquely responding to Sydney’s climate,” he says. “These angular balconies are much loved by occupants as they passively regulate ventilation, while providing wind protection and rain management.”
However, Chan is critical of the previous state government for pandering to developer lobby groups and dumping planning reforms.
“It’s crucial for the new state government to establish clear standards that ensure Sydney’s apartment buildings meet residents’ needs and contribute positively to the urban landscape,” he says. “Renewed focus on design excellence is necessary.”
Former NSW planning minister Rob Stokes wants Sydney to change its focus when it comes to building apartments.Credit: Brook Mitchell
Former planning minister Rob Stokes says Sydney should move away from high-rise apartments around transport hubs and embrace “soft density” of terraces, townhouses and low-rise medium units.
Similarly, architect and University of Sydney practice fellow Guillermo Fernandez-Abascal says a solution to Sydney’s housing woes may be found in suburbs such as Campsie filled with hundreds of walk-up apartment blocks often derided for being unattractive, utilitarian and cheap.
Yet these unit blocks have design features that are highly sought after such as narrow footprints that allow cross ventilation, flexible floor plans and minimal use of shared walls, he says. “We seldom find these features in apartment developments today.”
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Fernandez-Abascal says most new apartment blocks in Sydney have big footprints, inadequate solar access, lack ventilation and have a poor relationship to the street.
Yet the local council has earmarked Campsie for thousands of new homes in towers up to 20 storeys.
Fernandez-Abascal is not in favour of bulldozing ageing unit blocks in suburbs such as Campsie when density could be increased without ruining neighbourhood character by creating shared spaces, adding balconies and new apartments on top of the buildings.
“Most of the new apartments currently being built are of very questionable quality,” he says. “This is going to be a problematic legacy.”
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