Repaint, curate trinkets and go ‘curtain crazy’: how to give personality to a boxy, bland apartment

As construction costs rise, soulless white-cube housing is becoming the norm in many cities.

Here, new-build residents share how they’ve added character to their homes

You’ll recognise the hallmarks.

Banners with renders of utopian urban dwellings – a marriage of contemporary lines, streamlined surfaces, open-plan living spaces and floor-to-ceiling glass, alongside manicured green spaces and lifestyle imagery of young professionals and families.

Not necessarily the vision of a quarter-acre block with a white picket fence but in urban centres https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/30/bye-bye-quarter-acre-block-more-australians-are-living-in-apartments-but-do-they-meet-our-needs">the Australian dream of home ownership is being recast in the form of white-cube, new-build apartments.

In the US, https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article50548575.html">“5-over-1” buildings are fast becoming ubiquitous, while in Europe, where apartments have always been smaller, there’s a rise in shared-space models with communal kitchens and amenities.

Shanaka Herath, a senior lecturer at the school of built environment at the University of Technology Sydney, says: “We know that land costs have been rising, construction costs have been rising, so what the builders do is that they build smaller and more affordable units.”