Forget the flat. With the proliferation of city and inner suburban residential towers in Sydney and Melbourne in recent years, the term apartment has come into vogue, replacing flat as the preferred name for a dwelling that helps to make up a residential building or tower.

Australand’s Victorian residential general manager, Rob Pradolin, says the use of the word apartment is part of a wider industry/community discussion as to what actually defines “medium density housing”.

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“Medium density is a commonly used term for a range of housing which is not the traditional 
three-bedroom home on 450-500sqm block in the suburbs,’’ Mr Pradolin says.

“Medium density is townhouses, and it includes three-storey, walk-up apartments. In today’s context medium density is also four to five-storey apartment structures in the suburbs. Strictly speaking, the residential city towers are not medium density. They are high density.

“I think as an industry we have a hell of a lot of terminology issues, which leads to confusion as to what things actually mean.

“For instance, if I tell you you live in an apartment, and then I tell you you live in a flat, which is the one you think is better quality? Most people will say apartment.

“It’s actually a marketing term, and it changes perceptions from whatever people may think is undesirable to desirable. For example, ‘condominium’. It’s just another word for apartment.”

Mr Pradolin says the term penthouse also has a different meaning to various audiences.

“Traditionally,  the penthouse was the top flat in a building,’’ he says. “Now it is used to describe a larger, more luxurious apartment. I think all these terms were used in America and we have picked them up.”

The Australand chief says Australia is changing its housing terminology to match its changing housing trends.

“We still refer to the quarter acre (more than 1000sqm) block, but it has not existed as a typical housing product for over 15 years. Apartments now have more gravitas as an alternative housing product than they did a decade ago, hence the shift in terminology from flat to apartment.”