Few building types are as iconic as the six-pack apartment building in Melbourne. These modest, brick, walk-up blocks, home to six to eight one and two- bedroom dwellings, quietly shaped our city. Often unintended by planners and born of regulatory oversights, six-packs continue to provide affordable housing in inner-city suburbs from South Yarra to Footscray. After decades in the regulatory wilderness, they are now poised for a renaissance under new planning schemes; innovative Low-Rise Housing Code designed specifically to re-enable them in Victoria.
The story of the six-pack begins with legislative blind spots. In Melbourne, height and coverage regulations conceived to control single houses inadvertently favoured the compact form of walk-up apartments. Landholders capitalised on these gaps, erecting brick façades with functional layouts, modest communal gardens, and hills-hoist clotheslines for post-war families. Inside, generous ceiling heights, north-facing living rooms, and cross-ventilation set six-packs apart from later, regulation-driven developments.
By the 1970s and ’80s, six-packs had become a familiar sight across Australia’s suburbs, celebrated for their human scale and affordability. Comparable in massing to a single detached house yet offering multiple dwellings, these buildings fostered diversity even in affluent enclaves. Their stair-accessed corridors encouraged casual street-level interaction, and their thoughtfully oriented apartments prioritised daylight and airflow over maximum yield.
Over time, however, the same qualities that made six-packs fit so seamlessly into low-rise neighbourhoods attracted criticism. As early as the 1930s, Sydney architect Morton Herman lamented “innumerable box-like blocks which march cheek by jowl down uninteresting streets in increasingly dull suburbs, dismissing them as “mere shelters” devoid of cultural value. Community groups and local councils echoed these sentiments for decades. The introduction of ResCode envelopes and similar measures imposed tighter controls on height, setbacks, and design.
Rescode for two or more developments in Victoria was particularly destructive to this typology. It opened avenues for NIMBYs to object to reasonable developments in well-located suburbs introducing qualitative grounds for objects and immeasurable factors such as visual bulk and neighbourhood character. Small low-rise developments were often butchered with chamfers, and weird forms that were entirely inspired by an imaginary diagram. In the endless pursuit of complying to these diagrams they also birthed a monster in creating mansard roof trends in Melbourne.
Source: https://storeyofmelbourne.org/2020/01/27/rescode-townhouses-st-kilda/
Today, the planning landscape is shifting. Recent reforms have streamlined approval pathways, curtailed third-party appeals, and realigned density controls with the actual scale of six-packs. These changes have effectively re-legalised a typology that always sat comfortably within established neighbourhoods.
The 2025 Low-Rise Housing (Clause 55) has created the largest opportunity in recent memory to promote and allow in-fill developments in well located areas. By standardising bulk, scale, and siting—capping buildings at three storeys and aligning site coverage with historic precedents—the Code preserves the human-centred qualities of original walk-ups. Mandatory standards for natural light, cross-ventilation, and habitable room dimensions guard against minimalistic box designs, while a fast-track approval process bypasses merit assessments and NIMBY-driven objections. In codifying these parameters, the Low-Rise Housing Code removes uncertainty for designers and communities alike, clearing the path for six-packs to return to neighbourhoods where they once thrived.
As Australia grapples with housing affordability and sustainable urban growth, the six-pack offers a vast new opportunity for urban infill. The historic precedent has demonstrated how these buildings of modest infill—rooted in human-centred design—can accommodate density without sacrificing neighbourhood character. Their North-facing apartments and generous volumes provide healthier living environments than many volume-driven towers, while their incremental scale of growth avoids the upheaval of large-scale redevelopments. By embedding architecture within urban planning, six-packs remind us that good design and community cohesion can go hand in hand.
The resurgence of the six-pack apartment marks more than a nod to nostalgia; it signifies a return to an urbanism that values human scale, affordability, and contextual sensitivity. With the new Low-Rise Housing Code clearing the path, these walk-up gems—once sidelined by red tape—are set to become the backbone of a more diverse, equitable, and liveable city.