Apartment

a-pärt′ment, n. a separate room in a house occupied by a particular person or party: (arch.) a suite or set of such rooms—now in this sense the pl.: (obs.) a compartment.—adj. Apartment′al. [Fr. appartement, a suite of rooms forming a complete dwelling, through Low L., from L. ad, and partīre, to divide—pars, a part.]

The term apartment is favored in North America (although in some cities flat is used for a unit which is part of a house containing two or three units, typically one to a floor^[1]). In the UK, the term apartment is more usual in professional real estate and architectural circles where otherwise the term flat is used commonly, but not exclusively, for an apartment on a single level (hence a 'flat' apartment).

In some countries, the word "unit" is a more general term referring to both apartments and rental business suites. The word 'unit' is generally used only in the context of a specific building.

"Mixed-use buildings" combine commercial and residential uses within the same structure. Typically, mixed-use buildings consist of businesses on the lower floors (often retail in street-facing ground floor and supporting subterranean levels) and residential apartments on the upper floors.

Studio apartment[edit]

Studio apartment in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada, showing double bed, kitchenette, and entrance way with sliding door to closet

Main article: 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.^[8]

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.^[9]

Garden apartment (US)[edit]

Merriam-Webster defines a garden apartment in American English as "a multiple-unit low-rise dwelling having considerable lawn or garden space."^[10] 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 elevators. However, the first "garden apartment" buildings in New York, USA, built in the early 1900s, were constructed five stories high.^[11][12] Some garden apartment buildings place a one-car garage under each apartment. The interior grounds are often landscaped.

Garden flat (UK)[edit]

Georgian terraced 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 Georgian or Victorian townhouse was built with an excavated subterranean space around its front known as 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[edit]

Main article: Basement apartment

Generally on the lowest floor of a building.