Big and bright ideas meet huge strata challenges
By Jimmy Thomson and Sue Williams Black mould built into new homes, fire safety measures ignored and undermined, real estate marketers (rather than town planners) shaping our cities – these…
UNSW
Tiny pocket parks make a big urban impact
Cities will always draw people to them; like human magnets, they have jobs, homes and facilities in abundance (although sometimes not quite enough to go round). However, with only so…
Demand for sustainable units unmet, says report
Australian apartment block developers need to build more sustainable buildings that appeal to the demands of a wider variety of longer-term buyers, including owner occupiers, ‘Build-to-rent’ investors and social housing…
Why did you buy? Tell UNSW to enter $100 draw
It seems that, suddenly, everybody wants to know what strata owners are thinking. Following the success of our recent survey into your opinions on self-management of strata schemes – results…
Report reveals extent of unit block defects
For the past two years or more, a team of top academics based at UNSW’ s City Futures Research Centre has been investigating defective apartment construction in NSW. In a…
Online guide blazes trail through defects jungle
A new interactive, user-friendly online guide will help current and future apartment owners discover and deal with building defects, say its authors. Launched this week, the step-by-step guide, devised by…
Building expert: defects plan is deeply flawed
The NSW government’s plans to construct our apartment buildings better in the future, released last week, were met with a universal outpouring of … well … whatever the opposite of…
PODCAST: From block parties to hijacked high-rises
It would be fair to say that Flat Chat’s approach to apartment living and strata law over the years has been robustly non-academic. We use often cite anonymous sources, anecdotal…
Flat Chat Wrap #36 – From block parties to hijacked high-rises
It would be fair to say that Flat Chat’s approach to apartment living and strata law over the years has been robustly non-academic. We use often cite anonymous sources and…
Booked: Academic who discovered 85 percent of our blocks are defective
Over the past few weeks, usually in the context of our crumbling apartment blocks, we have frequently heard that a fairly recent UNSW study found that 85 per cent of…
Quiz: How well do you know your strata stats?
A few weeks ago, UNSW’s City Futures department released its Australian National Strata Data report, which confirm a few prejudices and busted a few myths about apartment living in Australia.…
Why poor areas will miss out on urban renewal
Owners of units in crumbling apartment blocks in poorer areas of Sydney may be stuck with them indefinitely, according to a new report, while their better-off counterparts in in more…