Apartment | place to live that is only part of a larger building

Author: Leandro Alegsa Creation date: November 13, 2022

An apartment (US English) or flat (British English) is a place to live that is only part of a larger building. Usually it is a group of rooms on one floor of a building in a city, where land is too expensive for people to have separate houses. An apartment that people own is called a condominium or "condo". A lesser known ownership structure for apartments is housing cooperatives. A rented has an owner called a landlord who charges money ("rent money" or "rent") from the people who live there ("tenants").

An apartment building or block of flats may have a few or many apartments. Each apartment is a separate room or set of rooms for people to live in. Sometimes an apartment will only be one small room, and tenants will have to share other rooms like the bathroom and kitchen. Other times, tenants will only share an entrance hallway with different doors leading to each apartment. This shared area is often cared for by a janitor or caretaker.

An apartment complex or housing estate is a group of apartment buildings. In an apartment complex, all of the apartment buildings are usually made in a similar way.

In many apartments, the tenants only pay the landlord for renting the apartment, and they have to pay other people to provide utilities like electricity and heat. In some apartments, especially the ones in apartment complexes, the tenants will have to pay more to rent the apartment, but in return the landlord will give them things like utilities, laundry rooms (where people wash their clothing), exercise rooms, and parking spaces for bicycles, motorcycles, and cars.

An apartment complex may also provide recreational facilities such as a swimming pool, mini golf course, movie theater, bowling alley and others

Apartment buildings are more common in cities than houses, because there is less room in a city to fit buildings. Building a house for one family in a dense city would cost an enormous amount of money compared to building a house outside of a city.

Word and term "reside"

The verb "to dwell" goes back to Mhd. wonen, Ahd. wonên (weilen, wohnen, hausen, bleiben, leben, sich aufhalten, verharren, ruhen, sein) and Proto-Germanic *wunēn, *wunǣn (gewohnt sein, zufrieden sein, wohnen). In German the Proto-Germanic root became more productive than in other languages; thus words like gewöhnen, Wonne, Wunsch, Wahn, gewinnen, and gönnen also arose from it. In the meaning of "dwell", a verb wonen exists to this day otherwise only in Dutch and in some related minority languages. In English, a Middle English verb wonen ("to dwell") developed from Old English wunian, preserved as the participle won (to the verb to win, "to gain"); the noun wont ("habit"), which remains closer to the original meaning, is now considered ancient. The verb bo, búa, búgva ("to dwell"), common in the North Germanic languages, does not go back to the Proto-Germanic *wunēn, but to a root *bo- independent of it.

In philosophy, Martin Heidegger attempted a precise definition of the term "dwelling", which has remained inspiring for architecture to this day (Bauen Wohnen Denken, 1951).

The Frankfurt kitchen from 1926 (reconstruction)

Sample living room at the Leipzig Spring Fair 1950

Housing Typology

A 'house' is usually referred to when the dwelling either does not directly touch other dwellings or is separated from other dwellings exclusively by walls (communal, fire or double walls). If, on the other hand, the separation is also or exclusively by ceilings, or if there are also significant premises in the same building used for other than residential purposes (e.g. business premises), it is more likely to be referred to as a 'dwelling'. The definition of a 'house' as a 'whole building' is in some cases (e.g. semi-detached houses with communal walls and common installations) not sufficiently clear-cut.

Apartments can be divided into types according to different criteria:

Houses:

according to the type of horizontal arrangement:

· (Detached) single-family house (no contact with other dwellings)

· Semi-detached house (wall contact with 1 other apartment)

· Terraced house (wall contact with up to 2 other flats)

· Back of the house

according to the size and effort of the design:

· Tiny House, Cabin, Barracks, Villa, Castle, etc.

after the residents:

· Farmhouse, Seldnerhaus, vintner's house, patrician's house, vicarage, etc.

by type of use:

· weekend house, dacha, alpine hut

See also: Category:Building form (residential building)

(Floor) apartments:

according to the vertical position and extension in the building:

· Basement apartment (the floor of the apartment is below ground level)

· Maisonette (often extends over several floors and usually includes the top floor and the attic)

· Mansard apartment (in the attic)

· Penthouse (an apartment built on top of another house; also called an attic apartment in Switzerland)

according to size and cut:

· granny annexe (a small additional dwelling in a home which is of secondary importance to the main dwelling)

· Garçonnière (a one-room apartment, depending on the layout also with a separate kitchen room or storeroom)

· Micro apartment (as before, but very small)

according to the type of building:

· Loft apartment (an apartment furnished in a former factory or warehouse).

after the date of construction of the building (mainly in Germany):

· Old building apartment (built before the Second World War, with typical features such as masonry walls, wooden beam ceilings, box windows and room heights over 2.6 m)

· New construction dwellings (dwellings in a newly constructed or reconstructed building. The period for which such a building is considered new construction is inconsistent and, depending on the context, ranges, for example, either until the first necessary refurbishment because the building shows visible signs of wear or because the current architectural style or construction technology has changed to such an extent that the building would no longer be newly constructed in this form. There is no specifically defined designation for apartments in houses built between the old and new construction phases. Sometimes apartments from the first years after World War II are referred to as post-war buildings, and in East Germany until the beginning of prefabricated housing [ca. 1965] also as apartments in old new buildings. Otherwise, apartments and houses are classified according to the decade of their construction, e.g. "...from the eighties").

according to the ownership structure:

· condominium (apartment is owned by individual persons, often the residents of the apartment)

· Rented apartment (apartment is owned by a landlord)

· Company flat, company flat (flat is the property of the tenant's employer)

according to the purpose of the rental:

· Holiday flat (flat is only let for a limited period and mainly to holidaymakers)

In the case of buildings containing several dwellings, a distinction is made between, among others, two-family houses, multi-family houses, terraced houses, apartment blocks and high-rise apartment buildings.

Room:

in the case of individual rooms, according to the type of person accommodated (e.g. guest room, servants' quarters, maids' quarters)
in the case of collective accommodation, according to the type of accommodation (e.g. room in a hotel, boarding house, room in an orphanage or boarding school, room in a children's, single people's, nursing or old people's home, room in a student hall of residence or in refugee accommodation, sick room, monastery cell, dormitory, barracks room, prison cell and many others)

The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Graycliff estate in Derby, south of Buffalo, New York has a chauffeur's apartment above the garage, as did many wealthy residences of the period.

Questions and Answers

Q: What is an apartment?

A: An apartment is a place to live that is part of a larger building, usually consisting of one or more rooms on one floor in a city.

Q: What are two types of ownership structures for apartments?

A: Two types of ownership structures for apartments are condominiums and housing cooperatives.

Q: Who is the owner of a rented apartment?

A: The owner of a rented apartment is called the landlord.

Q: What do tenants have to pay to the landlord when renting an apartment?

A: Tenants have to pay rent money or rent to the landlord when renting an apartment.

Q: Do all apartments include utilities such as electricity and heat?

A: No, not all apartments include utilities such as electricity and heat. In some cases, tenants will have to pay extra for these services.

Q: What kind of facilities may be provided by an apartment complex? A: An apartment complex may provide recreational facilities such as swimming pools, mini golf courses, movie theaters, bowling alleys and others.