Saturday, December 6, 2008

Encyclopedia > Apartment

Encyclopedia > Apartment
An apartment estate in Singapore; such blocks make up the majority of public housing and also housing in general in Singapore.
An apartment estate in Singapore; such blocks make up the majority of public housing and also housing in general in Singapore.

An apartment is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building. Apartments may be owned (by an owner-occupier) or rented (by tenants). Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1000x503, 160 KB) Summary Woodlands Avenue 7, WOODLANDS, Singapore. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1000x503, 160 KB) Summary Woodlands Avenue 7, WOODLANDS, Singapore. ... HDB Logo The Housing and Development Board (HDB) is the government agency responsible for Singapores public housing programme. ... Houses in Fishpool Street, St Albans, England For other meanings of the word house, see House (disambiguation). ...


The term "apartment" is favored in North America, whereas the term "flat" is sometimes, but not exclusively used in the United Kingdom and most other English-speaking areas and Commonwealth nations[citation needed]. North America North America is a continent [1] in the Earths northern hemisphere and (chiefly) western hemisphere. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...


Some apartment-dwellers own their apartments, either as co-ops, in which the residents own shares of a corporation that owns the building or development; or in condominiums, whose residents own their apartments and share ownership of the public spaces. Most apartments are in buildings designed for the purpose, but large older houses are sometimes divided into apartments. The word apartment connotes a residential unit or section in a building. Apartment building owners, lessors, or managers often use the more general word units to refer to apartments. Units can be used to refer to rental business suites as well as residential apartments. When there is no tenant occupying an apartment, the lessor is said to have a vacancy. For apartment lessors, each vacancy represents a loss of income from rent-paying tenants for the time the apartment is vacant (i.e., unoccupied). Lessors' objectives are often to minimize the vacancy rate for their units. The owner of the apartment typically when transferring possession to the occupant(s) gives him/her the key to the apartment entrance door(s) and any other keys needed to live there, such as a common key to the building or any other common areas, and an individual unit mailbox key. When the occupant(s) move out, these keys are typically returned to the owner. For other uses, see Coop. ... This article refers to a form of housing. ... A red brick apartment block in central London, England, on the north bank of the Thames An apartment building, block of flats or tenement is a multi-unit dwelling made up of several (generally four or more) apartments (US) or flats (UK). ... A suite is the location of a business within a shopping mall or office building. ... The term mailbox may refer to: The storage space used for Electronic Mail or Voicemail messages. ...


Apartment types and characteristics

A northern European apartment building.
A northern European apartment building.
A living room in Avalon Riverview North, a New York city luxury apartment building.
A living room in Avalon Riverview North, a New York city luxury apartment building.
Garden apartments in Seattle, Washington.
Garden apartments in Seattle, Washington.

Apartments can be classified into several types. One being a Studio, efficiency, bedsit, or bachelor style apartments. These all tend to be the smallest apartments with the cheapest rents in a given area. These kinds of apartment usually consist mainly of a large room which is the living, dining, and bedroom combined. There are usually kitchen facilities as part of this central room, but the bathroom is its own smaller separate room. Moving up from the efficiencies are one-bedroom apartments where one bedroom is a separate room from the rest of the apartment. Then there are two-bedroom, three-bedroom, etc. apartments. Small apartments often have only one entrance/exit. Large apartments often have two entrances/exits, perhaps a door in the front and another in the back. Depending on the building design, the entrance/exit doors may be directly to the outside or to a common area inside, such as a hallway. Depending on location, apartments may be available for rent furnished with furniture or unfurnished into which a tenant usually moves in with their own furniture. Permanent carpeting is often included in an apartment[1]. A garden apartment has some characteristics of a townhouse: each apartment has its own entrance, and apartments are not placed vertically over one another. However, a garden apartment is typically only one story high and never more than two stories; they are often one-bedrooms and almost never more than two-bedrooms. Some garden apartment buildings place a one-car garage under each apartment, with pedestrian entrances from a common courtyard open at one end. The grounds are typically more landscaped than for other modestly scaled apartments. Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (1280 × 960 pixel, file size: 1. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (1280 × 960 pixel, file size: 1. ... Image File history File links Metadata No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links Metadata No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution‎ (2,592 × 1,944 pixels, file size: 776 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. ... Seattle redirects here. ... Studio apartments are small, single-level living quarters intended for use by an individual. ... A bedsit, also known as a bed-sitting room, is a form of rented accommodation common in Great Britain consisting of a single room with a shared bathroom and lavatory; they are part of a legal category of dwellings referred to as Houses in multiple occupation. ... A typical American bathroom A bathroom is a room that may have different functions depending on the cultural context. ... A bedroom is a room where people sleep. ... For the UK band, see Furniture (band). ... For other uses, see Carpet (disambiguation). ... Leinster House, 18th century Dublin townhouse of the Duke of Leinster. ...


Laundry facilities may be found in a common area accessible to all the tenants in the building, or each apartment may have its own facilities. Depending on when the building was built and the design of the building, utilities such as water, heating, and electricity may be common for all the apartments in the building or separate for each apartment and billed separately to each tenant (however, many areas in the US have ruled it illegal to split a water bill among all the tenants, especially if a pool is on the premises). Outlets for connection to telephones are typically included in apartments. Telephone service is optional and is practically always billed separately from the rent payments. Cable television and similar amenities are extra also. Parking space(s), air conditioner, and extra storage space may or may not be included with an apartment. Rental leases often limit the maximum number of people who can reside in each apartment. On or around the ground floor of the apartment building, a series of mailboxes are typically kept in a location accessible to the public and, thus, to the letter-carrier too. Every unit typically gets its own mailbox with individual keys to it. Some very large apartment buildings with a full-time staff may take mail from the mailman and provide mail-sorting service. Near the mailboxes or some other location accessible by outsiders, there may be a buzzer (equivalent to a doorbell) for each individual unit. In smaller apartment buildings such as two- or three-flats, or even four-flats, garbage is often disposed of in trash containers similar to those used at houses. In larger buildings, garbage is often collected in a common trash bin or dumpster. For cleanliness or minimizing noise, many lessors will place restrictions on tenants regarding keeping pets in an apartment. Italian street, with laundry hung to dry Laundry can be: items of clothing and other textiles that require washing the act of washing clothing and textiles the room of a house in which this is done // Man and woman washing linen in a brook, from William Henry Pynes Microcosm... For other uses, see Telephone (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Parking (disambiguation). ... Note: in the broadest sense, air conditioning can refer to any form of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning. ... Look up storage in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A rental agreement is a contract, usually written, between the owner of a property and a renter who desires to have temporary possession of the property. ... A USPS van on Cambridge Street in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA. A mail carrier is an employee of the post office who delivers mail to a residence or business. ... A single key A key is a device which is used to open a lock by turning. ... A buzzer or beeper is a signaling device, usually electronic, typically used in automobiles, household appliances such as a microwave oven, or game shows. ... Waste inside a wheelie bin Waste in a bin bag Waste, rubbish, trash, garbage, or junk is unwanted or undesired material. ... A dumpster awaiting pick-up A Dumpster® is a large trash receptacle, and a type of mobile garbage bin or MGB. In British and Australian English, the term skip is more commonly used (although they are not perfect synonyms). ... This article is about animals kept for companionship. ...

Art Deco block
Art Deco block[2]

In some parts of the world, the word apartment is used generally to refer to a new purpose-built self-contained residential unit in a building, whereas the word flat means a converted self-contained unit in an older building. An industrial, warehouse, or commercial space converted to an apartment is commonly called a loft. Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution‎ (3,072 × 2,304 pixels, file size: 2. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution‎ (3,072 × 2,304 pixels, file size: 2. ...


When part of a house is converted for the ostensible use of a landlord's family member, the unit may be known as an in-law apartment or granny flat, though these (sometimes illegally) created units are often occupied by ordinary renters rather than family members. In Canada these suites are commonly located in the basements of houses and are therefore normally called basement suites. Secondary Suite is an urban planning term for an additional separate dwelling unit on a property that would normally accommodate only one dwelling unit. ... Secondary Suite is an urban planning term for an additional separate dwelling unit on a property that would normally accommodate only one dwelling unit. ...


In Milwaukee vernacular architecture, a "Polish flat" is an existing small house or cottage that has been lifted up to accommodate the creation of a new basement floor housing a separate apartment, then set down again; thus becoming a modest two-story flat.[3] For other places with the same name, see Milwaukee (disambiguation). ... Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorize a method of construction which uses locally available resources to address local needs. ...

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