Health and wellbeing is the focus of an audit report of Australian state and territory apartment design guidelines. There is a passing mention about universal design and residential mobility at the end. These are considered indirect factors for wellbeing that might be worth researching at another time. There is a comparison chart of the similarities and differences between state and territory policies and guidelines. Many of these include universal design and accessibility, but these factors were not picked up in the comparison chart. The nationally recognised Livable Housing Design Guidelines were not referenced even though they also support health and wellbeing. This is an open access report and should be of interest to anyone in the residential housing sector. It is good to see there is a focus on quality of design.
From the conclusions: “Finally, this audit focused on specific design themes known to impact health, however other design features also contribute to the experience of apartment living (e.g., storage, car/bike parking, lighting, universal design). While these features might not directly impact on health and wellbeing, they nonetheless contribute to the ease of long-term apartment living, and many policies include standards for such features. Given the evidence that apartment and neighbourhood satisfaction can reduce residential mobility and enhance mental health (Giles-Corti et al., 2012), these indirect factors may be worthy of investigation in future studies.”
Editor’s Comment: Given we have population ageing and housing demands by people who are NOT on the NDIS, I should have thought universal design and accessibility are essential to health and wellbeing. There is nothing healthy about not being able to get out of your home or being able to visit your family. The building code requires disability access into apartment buildings and public space, but not inside the dwellings – which is where universal design comes into play.