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Comment by kibwen | Hacker News Reader

There's a very good NYT article with great visualizations on the process of and obstacles to converting office buildings to residential: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office...

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Thanks, this was interesting! If anyone is blocked by the paywall use this:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office...

I find it interesting people converted factories and workshops and such into housing (lofts etc) but developing places built for humans is somehow harder. I feel like most of this is FUD for redevelopment subsidies by developers. A good friend is a Gehry apprenticed professor of architecture that specialized in sky scrapers, residential and commercial, and he thinks it’s technically not a challenge. They are built with drop ceilings and modularity built in mind so segmenting into smaller spaces with plumbing and other amenities isn’t a challenge. Most offer floor to ceiling windows around a core of elevator banks so the “no windows” thing is on the surface absurd.

> A good friend is a Gehry apprenticed professor of architecture that specialized in sky scrapers, residential and commercial, and he thinks it’s technically not a challenge.

It's not a technical challenge, it's an economic challenge. For the large floorplate postwar buildings, the cost of the conversion usually doesn't make sense unless the rents or prices the units can fetch is very high, often higher than local wages can support.

> Most offer floor to ceiling windows around a core of elevator banks so the “no windows” thing is on the surface absurd.

A floor to ceiling window isn't operable. Many of those would have to be replaced with Windows that are operable.

I've been thinking about the office building in which I worked pre-pandemic. It's actually not that wide and could be converted into a residential tower without cutting any holes in it (we had about 5 metres worth of desks, then 3 metres of walking space around the building core housing the elevators, fire escapes and conference rooms), but the ceiling height would be an obstacle. A typical flat is 2.7m tall, 3m is a premium height. The office had ceilings that were at least 3.5m tall to absorb the noise of the open space.

These projects are so interesting from an architectural/engineering standpoint, but then they hit you with the "rethink the rules that say how much green space an apartment needs or where its windows must be." I highly doubt the best long-term policy for a city's residents involves even less greenspace and natural light.

I highly doubt the best long-term policy for a city's residents is to have a housing shortage and for many to live on the street because of natural light concerns.

Homelessness and affordable housing aren't really related in this case. These people can afford and get housing if they wanted to, just not in their preferred area. But it's not like they're gonna just throw their hands in the air and decide to be homeless because they couldn't find a place exactly where they wanted. They'll just move somewhere else they can afford.

Thanks for sharing this!

WSJ recently had a good video on challenge of converting office building into condo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTKjwWlhcLM

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