Kitchens are cramping apartment living, forcing residents to cook less and shop more

Modern apartments are being built with cramped, impractical kitchens that are forcing residents to store food in bedrooms, cook less and buy groceries more frequently through the week.

The findings from new research that assessed the kitchens of 115 two-bedroom apartments for sale in Richmond, Box Hill and Footscray, in buildings of between five and 17 storeys, has prompted calls for stricter standards to ensure the state government’s high-rise ambitions deliver quality, liveable housing.

Kathleen Locke took 18 months to find a suitable apartment because of poor kitchen designs.Credit: Wayne Taylor

Only 18 of the homes assessed in the Deakin University survey – less than one-sixth – were found to be appropriately designed for storing and preparing meals.

Associate Professor Fiona Andrews, a co-director of Deakin’s housing research centre, said that if Melbourne was to densify, getting kitchens right was crucial for making apartments a more appealing, long-term option.

“Given most of us eat every day and many of us cook every day, it’s a really important space,” Andrews said.

“These [apartment] buildings will last years and years … We need to do it well.”

Deakin’s researchers published two papers; the first, in journal Cities and Health, features a dozen Melbourne apartment residents who want to cook at home for health, environmental and financial reasons.

Residents told the researchers they had tried to adapt to problems such as limited bench and storage space but still had to adjust their lifestyles by cooking less or more simply, buying groceries more frequently through the week and storing food in bedrooms.

The second study, in the International Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, involved auditing real estate listings and interviewing architects, who suggested that adding kitchen-specific guidelines to the state government’s Better Apartment Design Standards would help lead to more liveable design.

This was also a recommendation of a 2022 Victorian parliamentary inquiry report on apartment design.

Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny’s office told The Age last month that the apartment design guidelines would be updated in response to the inquiry, but only by 2026.

The Allan government announced plans in October to fast-track higher-density development in 50 neighbourhoods across Melbourne, with a target of building 80,000 homes a year.

Currently, there are minimum standards for apartment bedrooms and living areas but not for kitchen and dining areas, which means developers can sacrifice those areas to meet state rules.

Andrews said she was surprised to find it wasn’t necessarily the size of a kitchen that made it functional for residents, but the design.

For example, residents need adequate bench space by the stove, accessible cupboards, good ventilation for smells, lighting and safe areas for involving children in food preparation.

Older units, such as brick walk-up flats, tended to have larger, functional kitchens, but that changed during the apartment boom of the past two decades as developers focused on maximising their yield of homes, primarily targeting singles and couples.

“The demographic in apartments is changing – there are more families with children and people born overseas who are used to apartments they can cook and dine in,” Andrews said.

She hoped her research would help prompt a rethink in design, for example by prioritising a better kitchen over having two bathrooms, and practicality over aesthetics.

“We should be able to come up with designs for small, affordable, functional kitchen prototypes.”

Kathleen Locke house-hunted for 18 months before finding her apartment in Footscray late last year.

As a keen home cook with a full pantry and all the gadgets, the kitchen was her priority. Yet most of those she looked at were too small or awkwardly designed.

Locke said her kitchen is generous as far as apartments go, with plenty of storage, but she felt frustrated by what developers built.

“Young families are living in apartments because they can’t afford a house, and you can’t expect them to feed their kids by buying out every day,” she said.

Architect Bianca Hung, the interiors principal at firm Hayball, said apartment kitchens were generally better now than a decade ago, but it could be tricky to balance function and affordability when designing for a bulk market.

Hung called for best-practice guidelines rather than new prescriptive rules that risked limiting innovative solutions for small spaces.

She said it was best to provide a well-designed base that residents could enhance themselves – for example, by adding their own island bench or shelving.

Better Renting executive director Joel Dignam suspected some apartment kitchens were poorly designed because they were built for investors who did not intend to live in the homes.

“There are renters out there who don’t eat out often, and they may be willing to sacrifice a good kitchen for cheaper rent. But … many renters wish they could cook better in their homes,” Dignam said.

“The problem seems to be choice, and that the current tight rental market is not giving renters the option to find an affordable home with a decent kitchen.”

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