- Also called:
- apartment block, or block of flats
- Related Topics:
- housing
- residential architecture
Apartment house
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What is an apartment house?
An apartment house is a building with multiple dwelling units, mainly for domestic use, but sometimes with shops or other nonresidential features.
Apartment buildings have been around for centuries. They first appeared in Paris and other large European cities in the 18th century as tall blocks of flats for middle-class tenants. By the mid-19th century, inexpensive apartment houses were constructed in large numbers in Europe and the United States to house industrial laborers. The modern large apartment building emerged in the early 20th century with the addition of elevators and central heating.
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How is an apartment house different from other types of housing?
An apartment house, or apartment building, contains multiple dwelling units, often designed for domestic use, but may also include shops and other nonresidential features. Unlike individual houses, apartment houses accommodate groups rather than single families or individuals, making them a form of group housing that is both public and private.
Apartment houses differ from great houses or mansions, which were sometimes subdivided to house servants. Modern apartment buildings, which emerged in the early 20th century, incorporate shared amenities like elevators and central heating. The most common form of occupancy is rental, though ownership can take the form of cooperatives or condominiums.
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What are some common features found in apartment houses?
An apartment house is a building with multiple dwelling units, mainly for domestic use, but sometimes with shops and nonresidential features. Apartment buildings have been around for centuries.
Common features found in apartment houses:
* Interior Finishes Gypsum board is a widely used wall finish. It is applied to timber or metal frameworks. Water-resistant gypsum board is used in bathrooms and kitchens, sometimes with ceramic tile.
* Life-safety systems These systems protect and evacuate building occupants during emergencies. They include fire and smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, and sprinkler systems.
* Partitions Space division systems use gypsum board partitions attached to the building structure. Concrete blocks are used in unfinished spaces and for fire-resistive partitions.
* Emergency exits Protected exits lead to the exterior. Multistory buildings have enclosed stairways with fire-rated enclosures that lead to the exterior.
* Elevators High-rise buildings require mechanical vertical transportation, such as elevators.2 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
How has the design of apartment houses changed over time?
Apartment house design has evolved significantly over centuries. In the Roman Empire, apartment buildings, known as insulae, housed city dwellers, while in the Middle Ages, European mansions were subdivided to accommodate servants. The emergence of the modern apartment house occurred in 18th-century Paris, with buildings offering flats for middle-class tenants. By the mid-19th century, industrial laborers in Europe and the United States lived inexpensively constructed, poorly designed apartments.
The 20th century saw the rise of large apartment buildings with amenities such as elevators and central heating. Post-World War II, urbanization increased the demand for apartment housing, resulting in the construction of mid- and high-rise apartment complexes.
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What factors influence the architectural style of apartment houses?
The architectural style of apartment houses is influenced by a range of factors, including social needs, economic conditions, and technological advancements.
Society's requirements and goals, as well as the need to adapt designs to specific uses and general physical needs, play a crucial role. Apartment houses can be shaped by communal states seeking to equalize living standards or by other systems aiming to gather members of a class.
Economic factors also play a significant role. The economics of land, labor, and materials influence architectural planning. High land values, for example, may lead to group architecture, as seen in historic examples like the Place des Vosges in Paris.
Technological advancements, such as elevators and central heating, have also shaped the design of modern apartment buildings. The availability of materials like steel, reinforced concrete, and glass impacts the form and appearance of buildings, fostering an architecture that openly recognizes its technical foundation. Green architecture also plays a role through sustainable energy sources, material reuse, and consideration of environmental impact. Building codes also impact apartment house architecture.
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How do architects design apartment houses to make them comfortable for many people?
Architects consider several factors to design comfortable apartment houses. They incorporate architectural modifications such as angled walls to improve sound quality and reduce noise. Proper heating and cooling systems that use natural gas, fuel oil, or electric resistance coils ensure a comfortable atmosphere. The design of lighting schemes must provide variety in highlights and shadows to avoid monotony. Also, consider the social aspect of housing, blending well-laid-out apartments with a high-quality facade.
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Apartment house, building containing more than one dwelling unit, most of which are designed for domestic use, but sometimes including shops and other nonresidential features.
Apartment buildings have existed for centuries. In the great cities of the Roman Empire, because of urban congestion, the individual house, or domus, had given way in early imperial times to the communal dwelling, or insula (q.v.), except for the residences of the very wealthy. Four stories were common, and six-, seven-, or eight-story buildings were occasionally constructed. Another type of apartment existed in Europe in the Middle Ages, consisting of a great house or mansion, part of which was subdivided into smaller sets of rooms in order to house the servants and other retainers of an important person. In contrast to these “apartments,” which were simply personal suites within great houses, the apartment house as it is known today first appeared in Paris and other large European cities in the 18th century, when tall blocks of flats for middle-class tenants began appearing. In the typical Parisian apartment building, the size of the apartments (and the financial means of the tenants) decreased with each successive story in a four- or five-story building.
By the mid-19th century, large numbers of inexpensive apartment houses were under construction to house swelling numbers of industrial labourers in cities and towns across Europe and in the United States. These buildings were often incredibly shabby, poorly designed, unsanitary, and cramped. The typical New York City apartment, or tenement, a type first constructed in the 1830s, consisted of apartments popularly known as railroad flats because the narrow rooms were arranged end-to-end in a row like boxcars. Indeed, few low-cost apartment buildings erected in Europe or America before 1918 were designed for either comfort or style. In many European cities, however, particularly in Paris and Vienna, the second half of the 19th century witnessed great progress in the design of apartments for the upper-middle class and the rich.
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The modern large apartment building emerged in the early 20th century with the incorporation of elevators, central heating, and other conveniences that could be shared in common by a building’s tenants. Apartments for the well-to-do began to offer other amenities such as leisure facilities, delivery and laundry services, and communal dining rooms and gardens. The multistory apartment house continued to grow in importance as crowding and rising land values in cities made one-family homes less and less practicable in parts of many cities. Much government-subsidized, or public, housing has taken the form of apartment buildings, particularly for the urban elderly and working classes or those living in poverty. Apartment-block towers also were erected in large numbers in the Soviet Union and other countries where housing construction was the responsibility of the state.
Since World War II the demand for apartment housing has continued to grow as a result of continued urbanization. The mid- or high-rise apartment complex has become a fixture of the skylines of most of the world’s cities, and the two- or three-story “walk-up” apartment also remains popular in somewhat less built-up urban areas.
The most common form of occupancy of apartment houses has been on a rental basis. However, multiple ownership of units on a single site has become much more common in the 20th century. Such ownership can take the form of cooperatives or condominiums. In a cooperative, all the occupants of a building own the structure in common; cooperative housing is much more common in parts of Europe than it is in the United States. A condominium denotes the individual ownership of one dwelling unit in an apartment house or other multidwelling building. The increasing popularity of condominiums in the United States and elsewhere is based largely on the fact that, unlike members of a cooperative, condominium owners are not financially interdependent and can mortgage their property.