Why Do So Many New Apartments Look the Same?

A similar stack can contain different buildings.

Start with the construction behind the facade. At Cubix-Othello, structural engineer ABKJ identifies five levels of modular wood housing above two concrete levels: one above ground and one basement. It also identifies two precast concrete stair cores. That is more specific than a photograph could tell you. [1]

For Sundodger at 4218 Roosevelt, AHBL describes five wood-framed residential stories over a concrete podium, with ground-floor retail and two parking levels below ground. Beryl’s developer describes five wood housing levels, a concrete base with retail and lobby, and one underground parking level. [2] [3]

The same short nickname would flatten those differences. Does “one” mean a floor above the street, a podium slab or every concrete level including the basement? Before comparing two buildings, establish what is actually being counted. A slope can also make the street-facing view an unreliable floor counter.

Use the layer buttons to follow a material or function. The height of a coloured band is schematic; it does not state a ceiling height. We draw the verified stair-core concept only for Cubix. A missing core drawing for the other cases means the required detail was not established, not that those buildings have no stairs.

Repetition answers practical questions.

Apartment design contains repeated tasks: rooms need light, residents need access, services need routes, and loads need a path to the ground. Repeating a workable arrangement can simplify coordination. This is a design explanation, not a claim that the three developers used identical plans or made the same financial decision.

A residential floor also asks different things of its structure from a shop or garage below. Many small rooms and a more open ground floor need not use the same layout. A podium helps organise that change. WoodWorks describes podium construction as a family of arrangements governed by building-code conditions, not one universally permitted stack. [5]

Cubix adds another distinction: modular construction. Prefabrication concerns how components are made and assembled; it does not by itself tell you what every level is made of. ABKJ describes a combination of wood modules, concrete lower levels and precast cores. The project team reports construction-efficiency benefits, but we have not audited its savings or compared bids. [1]

It is tempting to turn “efficient to repeat” into “always cheaper”. That skips land, excavation, labour, financing, schedule and the specification of the finished homes. Without equivalent project accounts, an exact percentage saving would be invented certainty. Our tool deliberately has no cost slider.

There is no single rule for every American apartment.

Model building codes are adopted and amended locally. Seattle’s official code-adoption material identifies the 2021 editions with Washington and Seattle amendments; the version year is not itself a permit date. A current code page does not establish the rules under which an older building was approved. [4]

For a specific project, you would need its permit record, code summary and relevant approved details. We have not obtained that complete record for these three examples. Accordingly, this article does not reverse-engineer a permitted height from a photograph or claim that a present-day provision caused a past design choice.

For a concrete example of the mechanism, section 510.2 of the published 2021 Seattle Building Code allows specified parts of a building to be treated separately for certain code purposes, subject to conditions including a three-hour horizontal separation and Type IA construction below. That provision explains why a podium is more than an architectural nickname; it does not prove that any particular project used this edition or provision. [6]

Planning and building regulation also answer different questions. The permitted use of a site, its envelope and its relationship to the street are not interchangeable with structural and fire-safety requirements. Readers can use that distinction when asking why a particular form was proposed, without treating this article as a code interpretation.

Site constraints are visible in the project descriptions. AHBL discusses neighbouring foundations at Sundodger. Tarragon describes Beryl’s recessed street frontage. These details show choices within a shared construction pattern. They do not prove that all streets, lots or development budgets push designers towards the same result. [2] [3]

Shared structure does not mean identical experience.

From a pavement, you can observe an entrance, a blank wall, a window pattern or a shopfront. You cannot reliably identify concealed connections, acoustic performance or the maintenance history. A material label is not a shortcut to declaring a building safe, unsafe, luxurious or poor quality.

For someone considering a home, separate the questions. Does the room receive useful daylight? Where will deliveries arrive? What faces the bedroom? How does the entrance meet the pavement? Those are meaningful enquiries even when two buildings share a broad structural arrangement.

A tour can help with some questions; drawings, specifications and properly qualified inspections answer others. An agent’s rendering or a colourful exterior is not a substitute for those records. Our diagrams strip away the facade to explain only the small set of facts for which we have project evidence.

Use the resemblance as the beginning of the question.

Ask which floors are housing, what sits below them and what evidence supports that description. Then ask which parts are specific to the site. The answer may involve a familiar construction system, but the street, basement, cores and layout still matter.

Our three cases are an explanatory sample, not a count of Seattle’s housing stock or evidence that every new building looks alike. We link to the original project pages for their photographs. No licence to republish those photographs has been established, so the review package includes our own labelled diagrams instead.

The familiar shape becomes more informative once you stop treating it as a complete diagnosis. Similar ingredients can support different buildings—and different experiences of living in them.

Read the underlying guidance.

1. Cubix-Othello Apartments, SeattleABKJ, structural engineer · checked 2026-09-27. Five modular wood residential levels; two concrete levels (one above grade, one basement); two precast stair cores. Diagram encodes these counts, not plan geometry.
2. 4218 Roosevelt / Sundodger Apartments, SeattleAHBL, project engineer · checked 2026-09-27. Five wood residential stories over concrete podium and ground-floor retail; two below-grade parking levels. Core geometry not stated.
3. Beryl Apartments, SeattleTarragon, developer · checked 2026-09-27. Five wood residential levels, concrete podium/ground-floor retail and lobby, one underground parking level; recessed facade.
4. Seattle code adoptionSeattle SDCI · checked 2026-09-27. Official search extract identifies adopted 2021 model codes with local/state amendments and 2024-cycle material. Individual project permit edition has not been verified.
5. Code Path and Requirements for Mid-Rise Podium ProjectsWoodWorks – Wood Products Council · checked 2026-09-27. 2024 IBC explanatory material on podium arrangements; trade body not regulator; not a project-specific permit determination.
6. 2021 Seattle Building Code, Chapter 5, section 510.2Seattle SDCI · checked 2026-09-28. Page 5-23: conditional horizontal building separation provision, including 3-hour separation and Type IA construction below. Not a permit determination for the three cases.

Source and calculation checks by the producing AI, plus a separate AI audit. Human English editing and subject-specialist review have not been completed. Permit drawings and project-specific code analysis; architect and English-editor review.