Editing Apartment (section)

==Types and characteristics==
===Studio apartment===
[[File:Cuisinette studio in Sherbrooke April 2010.jpg|thumb|Studio apartment in [[Sherbrooke, Quebec]], Canada, showing double bed, kitchenette, and entrance way with sliding door to closet]]
{{Main|Studio apartment}}
{{See also|Microapartment}}
The smallest self-contained apartments are referred to as studio, efficiency or bachelor apartments in the US and Canada, or studio flat in the UK. These units usually consist of a large single main room which acts as the living room, dining room and bedroom combined and usually also includes kitchen facilities, with a separate bathroom. In Korea, the term "one room" (''wonroom'') refers to a studio apartment.<ref>{{cite web | title='Konglish' Not Spoken Here: Asia Society Korea Center Targets Signs and Schoolbooks | website=Asia Society | date=11 October 2012  | url=http://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/konglish-not-spoken-here-asia-society-korea-center-targets-signs-and-schoolbooks | access-date=5 February 2015}}</ref>

A [[bedsit]] is a UK variant on single room accommodation: a bed-sitting room, probably without cooking facilities, with a shared bathroom. A bedsit is not self-contained and so is not an apartment or flat as this article uses the terms; it forms part of what the UK government calls a [[house in multiple occupation]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Private renting: Houses in multiple occupation - GOV.UK|url=https://www.gov.uk/private-renting/houses-in-multiple-occupation|website=www.gov.uk|access-date=16 April 2018|language=en}}</ref>

The American variant of the bedsit is the [[single room occupancy]].

===Garden apartment (US)===
[[Merriam-Webster]] defines a garden apartment in [[American English]] as "a multiple-unit low-rise dwelling having considerable lawn or garden space."<ref>{{cite web |title=Garden apartment |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/garden%20apartment |website=Merriam-Webster Dictionary |access-date=29 August 2018}}</ref> The apartment buildings are often arranged around courtyards that are open at one end. Such a garden apartment shares some characteristics of a [[townhouse]]: each apartment has its own building entrance, or shares that entrance via a staircase and lobby that adjoins other units immediately above and/or below it. Unlike a townhouse, each apartment occupies only one level. Such garden apartment buildings are almost never more than three stories high, since they typically lack [[elevator]]s. However, the first "garden apartment" buildings in New York, US, built in the early 1900s, were constructed five stories high.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/garden_apartments/ |title=New York City Garden Apartments |access-date=17 October 2009 |first=Barry |last=Popik |website=barrypopik.com|date=5 July 2004 }}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |last=Hogan |first=Meghan |url=http://www.preservationnation.org/magazine/story-of-the-week/2006/eden-in-the-city.html |title=Eden in the City |magazine=Preservation Magazine |date=2006-09-22}} {{endash}} Article on preservation of early United States garden apartment buildings.</ref> Some garden apartment buildings place a one-car garage under each apartment. The interior grounds are often landscaped.

In [[Chicago]], a garden apartment refers to a [[basement apartment]].<ref>{{cite news |work=[[Chicago Tribune]] |title= Tenants are high on garden apartments |date=August 15, 2003 |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2003/08/15/tenants-are-high-on-garden-apartments/ |access-date=2024-08-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240811005208/https://www.chicagotribune.com/2003/08/15/tenants-are-high-on-garden-apartments/ |archive-date=2024-08-11}}</ref>

===Garden flat (UK)===
[[File:Streets of Bayswater.jpg|thumb|[[Georgian architecture|Georgian]] terraced [[townhouse (Great Britain)|townhouses]] in [[London]], England. The black railings enclose the basement areas, which in the twentieth century were converted to garden flats.]]
The ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' defines the use of "garden flat" in [[British English]] as "a basement or ground-floor flat with a view of and access to a garden or lawn", although its citations acknowledge that the reference to a garden may be illusory. "Garden flat" can serve simply as a [[euphemism]] for a basement. The large [[townhouse (Great Britain)|Georgian or Victorian townhouse]] was built with an excavated subterranean space around its front known as [[Area (architecture)|an area]], often surrounded by cast iron railings. This lowest floor housed the kitchen, the main place of work for the servants, with a "tradesman's entrance" via the area stairs. This "lower ground floor" (another euphemism) has proven ideal for conversion to a self-contained "garden flat". One American term for this arrangement is an [[English basement]].

===Basement apartment===
{{Main|Basement apartment}}
Generally on the lowest (below ground) floor of a building.

===Garret apartment===
{{Main|Garret}}
A unit in the [[attic]] of a building and usually converted from domestic servants' quarters. These apartments are characterized by their sloping walls, which can restrict the usable space; the resultant stair climb in buildings that do not have elevators and the sloping walls can make garret apartments less desirable than units on lower floors. However, because these apartments are located on the top floors of their buildings, they can offer the best views and are quieter because of the lack of upstairs neighbours.

===Secondary suite===
{{Main|Secondary suite}}
When part of a house is converted for the ostensible use of the owner's family member, the self-contained dwelling may be known as an "in-law apartment", "annexe", or "granny flat", though these (sometimes illegally) created units are often occupied by ordinary renters rather than the landlord's relative. In Canada these are commonly located below the main house and are therefore "basement suites".{{citation needed|date=November 2017}} Another term is an "accessory dwelling unit", which may be part of the main house, or a free-standing structure in its grounds.

===Salon apartment===
''Salon apartment'' is a term linked to the exclusive apartments built as part of multi-family houses in [[Belgrade]] and in certain towns in [[Yugoslavia]] in the first decades of the 20th century.<ref>Alfirević Đorđe, Simonović Alfirević Sanјa. [https://scindeks.ceon.rs/article.aspx?artid=0354-60551744007A „'Salon' apartment in Serbia between the two world wars: Reassessing the rationale behind the term”]. Arhitektura i urbanizam (Beograd), Iss. 44 (2017), pp. 7-13. ({{doi|10.5937/a-u0-11638}})</ref> The structure of the apartments included centrally located [[anteroom]] with a combined function of the dining room and one or more salon areas. Most of these apartments were built in Belgrade ([[Serbia]]), along with the first examples of apartments popularly named 'salon apartments', with the concept of spatial and functional organization later spreading to other larger urban centers in Yugoslavia.<ref>Keković, A., Petrović, M. (2011) [http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0354-4605/2011/0354-46051103495K.pdf Functional zones of flats in the period of Art Moderne in Niš (1930-1941)]. Facta universitatis - series: Architecture and Civil Engineering, vol. 9, br. 3, str. 495-499</ref>

===Maisonette===

Maisonette (from {{lang|fr|maisonnette}}, French for "little house" and originally the spelling in English as well, but it has since fallen into disuse) has no strict definition, but the ''[[OED]]'' suggests "a part of a residential building which is occupied separately, usually on more than one floor and having its own outside entrance." It differs from a flat in having usually more than one floor, with a staircase internal to the dwelling leading from the entrance floor to the upper (or, in some cases, lower) other floor. It is a very common arrangement in much [[post-war Britain|post-war British]] housing (especially but not exclusively public housing) and serves both to reduce costs by reducing the amount of space given to access corridors and to emulate the 'traditional' two-storey terraced house to which many of the residents had been accustomed. It also allows for apartments, even when they are accessed by a corridor, to have windows on both sides of the building.

A maisonette could encompass [[Tyneside flat]]s, pairs of single-storey flats within a two-storey [[terraced house|terrace]]. Their distinctive feature is their use of two separate front doors onto the street, each door leading to a single flat.<ref name="Housing in Gateshead" >{{cite web
  |title=Housing in Gateshead
  |url=http://www.gateshead.gov.uk/DocumentLibrary/housing/Leaflets/display_boards.pdf
  |publisher=Gateshead Council
  |year=2006
  |access-date=16 April 2018
  |archive-date=26 May 2012
  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120526135844/http://www.gateshead.gov.uk/DocumentLibrary/housing/Leaflets/display_boards.pdf
  |url-status=dead
  }}</ref> "Maisonette" could also stretch to [[cottage flat]]s, also known as 'four-in-a-block flats', a style of housing common in Scotland.

===One dwelling with two storeys===
[[File:ScissorFlat.jpg|thumb|Plan of scissor flats]]
The vast majority of apartments are on one level, hence "flat". Some, however, have two storeys joined internally by stairs, just like many houses. One term for this is "maisonette", as above. Some [[housing in the United Kingdom]], both public and private, was designed as [[scissor section flat]]s. On a grander level, [[penthouse apartment|penthouses]] may have more than one storey to emphasise the idea of space and luxury. Two-storey units in new construction are sometimes referred to as "[[townhouse]]s" in some countries (though not usually in Britain).

===Small buildings with a few one-storey dwellings===
[[File:Dingbat MaryJane.jpg|thumb|right|A [[Dingbat (building)|dingbat]], "The Mary & Jane", note styled balconies.]]

"[[Duplex (building)|Duplex]]" refers to two separate units horizontally adjacent, with a [[party wall|common demising wall]], or vertically adjacent, with a floor-ceiling assembly.

Duplex description can be different depending on the part of the US, but generally has two to four dwellings with a door for each and usually two front doors close together but separate—referred to as 'duplex', indicating the number of units, not the number of floors, as in some areas of the country they are often only one storey. Groups of more than two units have corresponding names (Triplex, etc.).{{citation needed|date=November 2017}} Those buildings that have a third storey are known as triplexes. See [[Three-decker (house)]]

In the United States, regional forms have developed, see [[vernacular architecture]]. In [[Milwaukee, Wisconsin|Milwaukee]], a [[Polish flat]] or "raised cottage" is a small house that has been lifted up to accommodate a basement floor housing a separate apartment, then set down again, thus becoming a modest pair of dwellings.<ref>{{cite book|editor-first=Sally |editor-last=McMurray |title=People, Power, Places|date=2000|publisher=University of Tennessee Press|location=Knoxville|isbn=9781572330757|page=40|edition=1st}}</ref> In the [[Sun Belt]], boxy small apartment buildings called [[Dingbat (building)|dingbats]], often with [[carport]]s below, sprang up from the 1950s.

In the United Kingdom the term ''duplex'' is usually applied to an apartment with two storeys (with an internal staircase), neither of which is located at ground level. Such homes are frequently found in low-cost rental housing, in apartment blocks constructed by local authorities, or above street-level retail units, where they may be occupied by the occupier of the retail unit or rented out separately. Buildings containing two dwellings with a common vertical wall are known as ''semi-detached'', or colloquially ''semis''. This form of construction is very common and built as such rather than being a later conversion.

===Loft apartment===
[[File:400SGreenLoft.jpg|thumb|The interior of a loft conversion in Chicago]]
{{Main|Loft#Loft apartment}}
This type of apartment developed in the US during the middle of the 20th century. The term initially described a living space created within a former industrial building, usually 19th century. These large apartments found favor with artists and musicians wanting accommodation in large cities (New York for example) and are related to unused buildings in the decaying parts of such cities being occupied illegally by people [[squatting]].

These loft apartments were usually located in former high-rise warehouses and factories left vacant after town planning rules and economic conditions in the mid 20th century changed. The resulting apartments created a new bohemian lifestyle and were arranged in a completely different way from most urban living spaces, often including workshops and art studio spaces. As the supply of old buildings of a suitable nature has dried up, developers have responded by constructing new buildings in the same aesthetic with varying degrees of success.{{citation needed|date=November 2017}} [https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/1999/11/22/focus7.html]

An industrial, warehouse, or commercial space converted to an apartment is commonly called a ''[[loft]]'', although some modern lofts are built by design.

===Penthouse===
{{Main|Penthouse apartment}}
A penthouse is an apartment usually located on the top floor of a high-rise apartment building. This type of house has exclusive features like private elevators, landscaped terraces, and high ceilings.

===Communal apartment===
{{Main|Communal apartment}}
In [[Russia]], a communal apartment («коммуналка») is a room with a shared kitchen and bath. A typical arrangement is a cluster of five or so room-apartments with a common kitchen and bathroom and separate front doors, occupying a floor in a pre-Revolutionary mansion. Traditionally a room is owned by the government and assigned to a family on a semi-permanent basis.<ref>{{cite web|title=Naherholung gleich ums Eck|url=http://www.terrafinanz.de/brenner-park-sendling|publisher=terrafinanz.de|access-date=17 June 2013|language=de}}</ref>

===Serviced apartment===
[[File:PAJASA Service Apartment Mumbai.jpg|thumb|Serviced apartment, Mumbai, India]]
{{Main|Serviced apartment}}
{{See also|Apartment hotel|Corporate housing}}
A serviced apartment is any-size space for residential living that includes regular maid and cleaning services provided by the rental agent. Serviced apartments or serviced flats developed in the early part of the 20th century and were briefly fashionable in the 1920s and 30s. They are intended to combine the best features of luxury and self-contained apartments, often being an adjunct of a [[hotel]]. Like guests semi-permanently installed in a luxury hotel, residents could enjoy the additional facilities such as house keeping, laundry, catering and other services if and when desired.{{citation needed|date=November 2017}}

A feature of these apartment blocks was quite glamorous interiors with lavish bathrooms but no kitchen or laundry spaces in each flat. This style of living became very fashionable as many upper-class people found they could not afford as many live-in staff after the First World War and revelled in a "lock-up and leave" life style that serviced apartment hotels supplied. Some buildings have been subsequently renovated with standard facilities in each apartment, but serviced apartment hotel complexes continue to be constructed. Recently{{When|date=April 2022}} a number of hotels have supplemented their traditional business model with serviced apartment wings, creating privately owned areas within their buildings - either [[freehold (law)|freehold]] or [[leasehold]].{{citation needed|date=November 2017}}

===Facilities===
[[File:Laundry Room.jpg|thumb|Laundry room]]
Apartments may be available for rent furnished, with furniture, or unfurnished into which a tenant moves in with his own furniture. [[Serviced apartment]]s, intended to be convenient for shorter stays, include soft furnishings and [[List of food preparation utensils|kitchen utensils]], and [[maid service]].{{citation needed|date=November 2017}}

[[Laundry#Shared laundry rooms|Laundry facilities]] may reside in a common area accessible to all building tenants, or each apartment may have its own facilities. Depending on when the building was built and its design, utilities such as water, heating, and electricity may be common for all of the apartments, or separate for each apartment and billed separately to each tenant. (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 almost always billed separately from the rent payments. Cable television and similar amenities also cost extra. Parking space(s), [[air conditioning]], and extra storage space may or may not be included with an apartment. Rental [[Rental agreement|lease]]s often limit the maximum number of residents in each apartment.{{citation needed|date=November 2017}}

On or around the ground floor of the apartment building, a series of [[Letter box|mailbox]]es are typically kept in a location accessible to the public and, thus, to the [[mail carrier]]. 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 carrier and provide mail-sorting service. Near the mailboxes or some other location accessible by outsiders, a buzzer (equivalent to a [[doorbell]]) may be available for each individual unit. In smaller apartment buildings such as two- or three-flats, or even four-flats, rubbish is often disposed of in trash containers similar to those used at houses. In larger buildings, rubbish is often collected in a common trash bin or dumpster. For cleanliness or minimizing noise, many lessors will place restrictions on tenants regarding smoking or keeping pets in an apartment.{{citation needed|date=November 2017}}

===Various===
[[File:One-by-five Apartments Austin, TX.jpg|thumb|Mid-rise [[one-plus-five]] style apartment buildings in [[Austin, Texas]]]]
In more urban areas, apartments close to the [[downtown]] (British English town- or city-centre area have the benefits of proximity to jobs and/or [[public transportation]]. However prices per square foot/meter are often much higher than in suburban areas.

Moving up in size from studio flats are one-bedroom apartments, which contain a bedroom enclosed from the other rooms of the apartment, usually by an internal door.  This is followed by two-bedroom, three-bedroom, etc. Apartments with more than three bedrooms are rare.

Small apartments often have only one entrance.{{citation needed|date=November 2017}} Large apartments often have two entrances, perhaps a door in the front and another in the back, or from an underground or otherwise attached parking structure. Depending on the building design, the entrance doors may be connected directly to the outside or to a common area inside, such as a hallway or a lobby.{{citation needed|date=November 2017}}

In many American cities, the [[one-plus-five]] style of mid-rise, wood-framed apartments have gained significant popularity following a 2009 revision to the [[International Building Code]]; these buildings typically feature four wood-framed floors above a concrete podium and are popular with developers due to their high density and relatively lower construction costs.<ref name="Curbed">{{cite web |url=https://www.curbed.com/2018/12/4/18125536/real-estate-modern-apartment-architecture |title=Why do all new apartment buildings look the same? |author=Sissom, Patrick |work=Curbed |date=4 December 2018 |access-date=23 February 2019}}</ref>