260 replies
1d4h
Conventional wisdom is thaty only certain office buildings can be converted to housing. The depth and shape of the building matters quite a bit. A lot of office buildings are very deep and would result in a lot of rooms/space without windows or access to natural light.
The DC area is doing a pretty good job with conversions. A lot of these midrise buildings are a good fit for this. Although the very broad midrise buildings are a poor fit.
But I wonder if we could challenge the conventional wisdom on conversions of deeper buildings. Could we come up with novel things to do with this deep interior space?
As someone who has spent hundreds of dollars on blackout curtains (and sticking electrical tape on every LED in the house), I'd be happy to buy an apartment where few of the rooms have natural light. I know bedrooms have to have windows so the fire department can pull you out of a burning building while you're asleep or whatever, but personally, I am not a fan of the noise and light most of the time.
I just think there is so much space that you can use in a residential setting without natural light. Your movie room. Your bedroom if you feel like not following The Law as to where they're allowed to be. All your 3D printers and other maker activities. If it's space that nobody wants, I'd personally buy it at a discount if it were offered to me.
It's less about natural light than ventilation. If whatever ventilation systems the building uses breaks down, interior rooms without opening windows are a liability.
Office towers do not have windows that open, aside from some very old ones might have windows that open.
Commercial building windows in general do not open at all.
My understanding is you have to fix this when changing to residential. There are building codes requires to be met for residential housing, and normally that includes openable window space for both ventilation and egress in an emergency. Maybe they'll make an exception for egress, but I doubt they will for ventilation.
Lots of tall condos have windows that can't open.
I'm not sure if you're being lax in your terminology or whether you are misinterpreting my point.
The problem is not that every window needs to open, it's that some windows need to open. In the building codes I've seen in the past for residential homes, that was expressed as a percentage of square feet of the room or entire building.
So, are you saying there are plenty of tall condos where no windows in a specific dwelling open, or that they have some windows that don't open? If they have no windows that don't open, do you mind mentioning where, as I'd be interested in what the solution was to the problem of needing to allow for passive ventilation.
There is no requirement for passive ventilation.
My friend owns a condo in Vancouver. No windows open.
Also Seattle: https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/s2s7bx/cant_open_a...
Also https://www.reddit.com/r/askTO/comments/omdxmp/downtown_unit...
Thanks, that's fairly clear and concise, at least for the locations you noted.
It does appear to be that in New York it might be required though[1], so it's possibly still a problem depending on area. I'm not going to act like I'm an expert on reading building codes or that one in general though, so I could be misinterpreting it. SF had what clearly seemed like a mechanical ventilation exception in it when I just looked, but SF and Manhattan are the only things I looked up to compare to see if I could find whether it seemed fairly universally allowed or not.
1: https://up.codes/viewer/new_york_city/nyc-building-code-2022... and https://up.codes/viewer/new_york_city/nyc-building-code-2022...
I don’t understand building codes. It’s not safe for people to sleep there, but it’s safe to work there for eight to twelve hours a day? Something is off.
Are you regularly alone and unconscious when at work?
Presumably because you're awake while working and can notice problems when they happen. Not so much when you're sleeping.
I mean… yes? I don't see what's so confusing. In an office building, if anything goes wrong, an alarm goes off and everyone leaves, and insurance pays for damages. In a residential building, you have people sleeping, sick, possessions they might not be willing to leave behind, babies, pets… It makes sense for the safety requirements to be different.
What good is an egress window 30 stories up?
The secret to flight is throwing yourself at the ground and missing.
Exactly why I would expect them to make an exception for it. Unless the local laws have been changed specifically to allow for that situation, I doubt the laws started out that way though. I don't imagine the people designing building codes for residential living put a lot of thought to extremely tall buildings initially.
This very much depends on where you are. I had an apartment in a high-rise building in Austin TX a few years ago that did not have openable windows of any kind (I also did not realise this until after signing the lease, which was unfortunate). I assume the building met code.
Isn't ventilation most of the time built into offices and hence much better than what you can get in most residentual buildings?
When it works, sure. You don't generally sleep for extended periods in an office though, so would probably notice it getting stuffy. Sleeping or bedridden people might not notice or be able to easily do something about it though if oxygen levels drop.
Sleeping produces less co2 than working. Therefore, if you don't feel it getting stuffy (without opening windows) at work time, then sleep time should be no issue. Besides, offices have to deal with more people than residential buildings. And air quality depends on the number of people (and what they do).
The difference when sleeping compared to resting or low activity work is that sleeping is about 60%-65% of resting from what I've found.[1] I'm not sure why we should assume that shouldn't be a problem. We could be close to a low oxygen situation prior to sleep, and then start sleeping and have hours for it to get worse.
We don't generally design safety regulations around "should" and averages, but instead when edge cases happen, as the magnitude of the outcome is very important to take into consideration. I'm not sure what you're trying to express with your comment.
1: https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/co2-persons-d_691.html
It's simple: if working for 8 hours with many people is not a problem for the ventilation system, then sleeping with less (residential) people should be no issue at all.
Most high rise office buildings use steam (older bldgs) or heat strip for heating. If there's an electrical problem, all fans blowing the treated air stop. They use chilled water flowing through air handling units for A/C. (in winter, these same units supply the heated air, the flow of chill water is usually halted.)
In a system like this, if the AHU stops for any reason, the whole floor is effected. Since chillers and associated equipment are very expensive, I would imagine the maintenance fees would be uncomfortable. (get it? Sorry.)
I think maybe spread out across all owners it might be palatable. You have to figure, if your heating/AC conks out, you're into that for 20k. So that's a pretty decent number when/if you're talking about multiple flats on one floor, right?
Every big building I ever lived in in Chicago had this system but for residential use. I am sure it is expensive when it breaks, but it is also amortized across hundreds of units. I'd go so far as to say it's "industry standard" so isn't going to be much of an obstacle for converting office buildings to residential spaces.
(In NYC, we all agreed to believe that there is no such thing as residential air conditioning that is not in the form of a window unit, however.)
I would think that the people density that an office space is built for is higher than residential density. Even a studio apt is more individual space than many shared office layouts.
Modern skyscrapers do not have openable windows, so the building ventilation system is totally relied on anyway.
One of the newest and tallest skyscrapers in Seattle, Rainier Square, not only has openable windows throughout but on some high floors has massive sliding windows that open up to a sheer drop (widely recognized as a bit of a potential safety risk).
Closed windows won't necessarily save you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Garry_Hoy
They won’t save you if you’re a complete idiot, yes. Why did this guy think this was in any way a safe thing to do?
I’ve always wondered what he thought on the way down.
I saw a video of a daredevil who decided to film himself hanging on to the roof of a skyscraper with his fingertips. He did a couple of pullups, but exhausted himself and could not pull himself up back onto the roof. Finally, he let go.
Pulling oneself up onto something by one's fingertips takes a lot of strength. Should have tried that beforehand. (It looks easy in the movies, but those stunt people are very fit.)
Those stunt people also use special effects to make it look like they are on a building but really a padded floor is just below their feet. If you only can see their upper body it may be they are standing on a stool or someone is pushing them up (though in this case I would expect they are actually pulling themselves up with brute strength). They also do this stunt a dozen times and then in editing choose the cut that looks best.
whoa, this links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths, and there are some crazy deaths. one that stands out is Kurt Gödel: "The Austrian-American logician and mathematician developed an obsessive fear of being poisoned and refused to eat food prepared by anyone but his wife. When she became ill and was hospitalized, he starved to death."
See my cousin comment about Central Park Tower. Modern commercial skyscrapers seem to not have openable windows.
This seems wrong... are people opening windows on the 60th floor? What about those buildings whose design precludes easy retrofitting to openable windows? I'm not being rhetorical, I'd like answers.
I figured looking up tall residential building and seeing what they do would be a good indicator of norms. The tallest Residential building in New York is Central Park Tower at 98 above ground floors:
The residential stories have casement windows, within the curtain wall, that can swing up to 4 inches (100 mm) outward. In addition, some condominium units have motorized windows at least seven feet (2.1 m) above the floor.[1]
The condominiums start on the 32nd floor, according to the same article.
If building can't easily be retrofitted to allow openable windows, then I would assume they either can't be used for residential or they could try to get some sort of exemption if they can prove it's safe. I'm mostly going off what I know about building codes and what I've read previously on the topic when it's posted and it's delved into what the actual problems are in converting to residential.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_Tower
Opening windows on high floors is great -- you don't need screens cause most urban insects stay much closer to ground level. (Although admittedly I haven't opened any windows higher than 20)
I rented a place specifically because one of the bedrooms has no windows. Easily one of the best quality of life improvements.
Great, until it's not. You have no escape in case of an emergency. The room probably wasn't technically a bedroom.
That's easily remedied - axes and specialized entry tools can be used for exiting.
Yeah, if it doesn't meet the legal definition of a bedroom, it can't be listed as one. That's partially why there are so few interior rooms - lower property value vs if it was a bedroom (but mainly consumer demand for windows).
> That's easily remedied - axes and specialized entry tools can be used for exiting.
You keep an axe in your bedroom?
Yes. Seattle is earthquake country, and I want to be able to get out if the doors are blocked or jammed from earthquake or fire. It's a fireman's axe, as that job is what they're designed for. I also keep a fire extinguisher in the bedroom.
I mean you’re also an axe murder, but that’s besides the point. ;)
If you've ever handled a fire axe, you'd realize it makes a lousy weapon. It has a long handle, with a heavy head. The idea is it can build up a lot of momentum to crash through things like doors and walls.
But the long handle makes it difficult to swing in a melee, and slow to swing, and once the swing starts it will be very hard to change its arc. Hence, your target can easily sidestep it. I suppose it would be good against plate armor, but not many villains wear plate armor these days. You also have to be careful with a fire axe to not chop your foot if you miss. I don't think I've ever seen a war axe/hatchet/tomahawk anywhere near that size.
For self-defense in close quarters, a baseball bat is ideal.
P.S. I am no martial arts expert.
"For self-defense in close quarters, a baseball bat is ideal."
Eh, not really. That's still a lot of unbalanced mass and potentially excessive length. There's a reason batons and other strike weapons aren't made like bats.
The best close quarter weapon, of course, is a (potentially illegally) sawed-off shotgun.
The second best is something that you've extensively practiced with, and designed for the purpose.
A gun is a terrible close quarters weapon. A gun is so good at long range that you can typically ensure you never get into a close quarters fight, but once it becomes close quarters you want something else. (with a gun you do have to keep the muzzle pointed away from you - but one hit with the bat will damage the barrel enough that it isn't safe to fire)
Aren't batons made to not produce serious injury? I.e. they're meant to coerce.
Wielding a baseball bat, you have to constantly worry about the opponent's getting his hands on the bat and wrestling it away from you: a screwdriver is better.
My bedroom has a window, so no. If your bedroom doesn't have a window and you're concerned about another exit, then sure.
Even simpler, many interior walls are built with studs covered by drywall.
Most able bodied adults can break drwall between the studs. It’s not a particularly strong material.
It really depends on the drywall. If it's 3/4 inch soundproof drywall over sound insulation with services like water, electrical, and sewage you can break it but now you have to navigate the services. And many people aren't going to shove themselves through studs on 16" centers.
If they're worried about not fitting through 16" studs (let alone this entire scenario), then they should select a room with two doors. If you can't fit through studs, I find it hard to believe they're fitting through most windows (generally a more awkward position with limited dimensions too).
Those services are in very limited places in interior walls. You may have an electrical line running to the outlets, but you be extremely unlikely to hit sewer or water. If you do, the gap ti the left or right is extremely unlikely to also have the same services.
Yeah, you can put beds in whatever room you want. You just can't sell a room with no window as a bedroom.
In some cases you can - most of the time codes don't allow it, but there are exceptions. Check the local laws..
Nobody is exiting the 60th floor of a skyscraper through the window. We don’t even have ladders that go that high on firetrucks in New York [1].
[1] https://www.fdnysmart.org/fire-trucks/ 95 ft, or about 10 stories
Which is why buildings higher than fire trucks can reach have different fire codes. Stairways are often a separate building within the building with a firewall between them - if the building starts on fire you can get down one of the stairs.
What, you don't keep a parachute under your bed?
I think the probability of that is lower than my probability of death on my motorcycle. So they're probably going to be fine. Everything is fine until it's not.
The risk tradeoffs we disallow are ones where you need to be 1σ+ to be making the tradeoff because the crucial functionality there we provide is legibility in the marketplace.
High up in an NYC building, there is no escape regardless of windows. Also, my quality of life with good sleep is so high, its easily worth it
When we were looking for a new house we toured one that had a bit of remodeling done. What was done was the back patio was enclosed to turn it into a room. The detail was that there was an existing bedroom that had a window onto the patio.
The solution, which I have to assume passed code, was simply to retain the bedroom window, even though it did not lead to the outdoors. So this house had an interior window.
I think in most places that bedrooms just need two means of egress plus possibly a specific ventilation requirement, which is most commonly met via a door plus a window, but could be met by two doors to two different legal means of egress (and an HRV/ERV if ventilation is required under locally adopted code).
Not all of the building needs to be direct residential; for example, I could definitely imagine some light retail, a computer lab, a tool library, an indoor track, a gym, et cetera.
I saw a picture of one of those giant suburban developments in Texas... like thousands of cookie cutter homes over a huge area. But I'm sure you could provide the same amount of living space and better amenities in a focused apartment building. There should be schools and restaurants and shops etc spread out over every floor. Or maybe like a 90's shopping mall with a 30 story apartment building on top. It just makes sense to me.
Why buy a nice suburban home and invest in your future when you could instead live in a windowless former office building with hundreds of other families?
A home is a really silly investment (i know that goes against the prevailing "wisdom"). the economic opportunities of living in an urban area coupled with investing in things that are actually economically productive are more likely to benefit you in the future. does your suburb's tax base cover the infrastructure maintenance costs? is this why suburban folks are so sensitive to their property values, because any little thing could send the development into a tail spin? sounds like a pretty dodgy investment to me.
A home is considered the new hotness, and if you don't own one, you're not financially smart for some reason. At least this is according to the hivemind at /r/personalfinance. Meanwhile, there are very legitimate reasons not to own a property.
Methinks people buying right before COVID at rock bottom interest rates has clouded the judgement of many. This is not a sure fire road to success right now, I can tell you that much.
The government will give you a bunch of free money to leverage an investment in real estate. This isn't true of other investments.
most investment assets can be financially leveraged. IMO suburb home ownership provides more of an illusion of financial security and leverage than the real thing. being able to buy a house, condo, or apartment in an urban area is a much more significant marker of financial success than doing the same in a heavily subsidized development with limited economic productivity.
Yes, but for most of them you need to convince someone else that giving you the money is a good idea.
And this free money, much like government guarantees for student loans, has only exacerbated the situation between the haves and the have nots.
I think it's financially smart to attempt to no longer be at the behest of a landlord's whim to raise rent. Home ownership is not even close to being out of reach for young people (like myself), but living in or near a city center absolutely is.
And I agree with you. I've made this point on an earlier thread here on HN... but the prices and interest that goes along with it is absolutely insane in places that are remotely desireable (see Phoenix, AZ) and I'd need to be effectively house poor, when the same place I looked at five years ago I could have afforded with my salary at the time no problem.
Such is the dreaded once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe like COVID and the money printing scam that happened after that that destroyed so much value in money. But others that got in before me at historically low interest and reasonable asset prices just tell me I need to buck up and work harder. I bet you they would be shitting bricks if they were in my shoes. It's like a nightmare I haven't been able to wake up from. :(
I don't disagree with anything you said, but I do think that people would generally be a lot happier if they can find comfort in living a relatively simple life. I know most people can't just uproot themselves instantly, but in my personal opinion, living somewhere more rural is 100% worth it in every single way. Lower cost of living, closer local communities (you GOTTA give a friendly wave when you drive past a stranger on a backroad, them's the rules!), more sunshine, fresh air, wide open fields...
The job market isn't as competitive as the Bay Area, but if you can remote work and/or get a local non-tech job making a livable wage (there's so many lifted trucks out here, these guys make money), it almost doesn't matter what you do for work, it pays the bills and you can spend time with family after that. You have a house, you have a car, you have a family, maybe you even have a camper like many others around you, and you go camping at the lake every month in the summer! Truly, rural living can actually be an idyllic paradise if you do it right!
I really appreciate your perspective. We as a society really are too fixated on keeping up with the Jonses, and it really sucks from a mental health standpoint I think. The city life can exacerbate this feeling considerably too.
I don't own, because I think it's best for my children if they grow up in this city, and the city happens to be one where unless you hit the jackpot (literal or parental) or decide not to save for retirement, you aren't owning.
And yet... I wish we could. I know it's not a great investment monetarily, but there are the fringe benefits, like being able to make the place my own or knowing that I'm not going to have to relocate the kids in a couple of years with a few months' notice because the landlord decides he wants the unit back.
One thing I do know is that all these people talk about this "nice place for yourself" instead of "being packed in like sardines" but then the people in the former also will talk about some loneliness epidemic etc etc.
I grew up in various times in a rural place with all sorts of animals where it was just me and my brother for miles and I also grew up later in a city where there were so many kids we would self-organize into all sorts of games and sports.
Personally, the rural place was great and the urban place was great, but the suburban place has neither adventure nor abundance of playmates. Hundreds of nearby families is the absolute dream!
The great thing about the city is that there's also a loneliness epidemic there.
Maybe, but it's a twenty minute subway ride to the nearest hackerspace.
The problem is never the suburban home - which are indeed often perfectly nice. The problem is the suburb itself, and the kind of people it attracts - those who think that walkability isn't a concern, and are content with driving to eat at a chain restaurant in a strip mall by the highway. Sounds like a properly crappy life to me. I for one will never buy property where I don't have a choice of bars to walk to.
Lots and lots of suburban houses are in fact the problem. Many of them are effectively temporary without being priced as such.
Lots of recently-built suburbia is a money pit [1].
[1] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2024/4/1/heres-the-real-...
Strong towns is not a good source. They keep stating "facts" that don't check out. Lanes do not need to be replaced every 20 years. On the busy streets they do, but on the not busy streets they can last a lot longer. They make lots of other mistakes like that in other analysis. Pipes last 60-100 years in the ground, but Strong Towns likes to calculate as if they need to be replaced every 20.
I know this is tongue-in-cheek, but the "with hundreds of other families" is the thing that makes college so fun, cities feel alive, etc. Some people are into that - and suburban life is increasingly feeling the absence of it.
Having a shared space where there are enough families around that there will be 10 kids guaranteed on the playground is nicer in a lot of ways than having 3 kids try to decide whose spacious yard is the gathering spot today.
Because roads and pipes cost money, and you eventually have to pay for it.
Hundreds of other families is my neighborhood, community, connection. I invest in my people not property.
How would any store or restaurant survive being on the third floor in the center of an apartment building?
They manage it in Asia without a problem. Hong Kong and Seoul are full of such places.
In HK, it probably works because you usually have lots of competing businesses in the same place.
This is how it works in Japan. I thought it was quite nice when I visited. You just enter the elevator at the ground floor, and every button has a store name next to it. You get some pretty nice views when dining on the 15th floor of a building in Akihabara.
A bar that's only an elevator ride away sounds pretty sweet.
Call it a speakeasy. People seem to love overpriced, secret businesses.
If the building's dense enough then you have a built-in set of regular customers. Especially if, say, you're a restaurant in the middle of a building with super-tiny kitchens in the apartments, like the ones described in the link.
I mean they'd have a built in customer base, and the workers would have an enviable commute, no?
Delivery costs could also be super cheap.
Sharing a wall with a neighbor is something I happily to pay a premium to avoid. Hearing a neighbor beat her son or listening to top volume manufactured R&B beats at 2AM when I needed to be at work at 530AM are not fond memories. It was powerful motivation to take my career more seriously.
You’d be surprised. Those homes are surprisingly cheap to throw up and you don’t have to do any additional support/maintenance.
And you’d mainly be missing the yards.
Most of these office buildings they’re talking about should just be knocked down and new purpose-built multi-use buildings built in their place.
The problem here is zoning laws, in most places in the US you can't build businesses right next to residential. We would have to change our zoning laws and do something similar to a 5 by 1 (bottom floor is retail, top floors are residential)
The same in Europe, zoning laws are a bitch and they're basically existing for bribes. Many local city counsellors get paid off to change the zoning laws and thus raise the price of the briber's property.
At least in Berlin this doesn't seem to be true. While zoning laws are a bitch and exist for bribes, none of them prohibit intermixing offices with residential or retail with residential, and such buildings are very common.
Yeah true here in Spain it's very mixed too. It's better like that I think because this way the neighborhood doesn't become deserted at night and also we can go to a local restaurant for lunch.
The 'zoning' here is more building by building rather than neighborhood based.
But I mean the same kind of administrative issue holds back conversions here. Most Office buildings here would be ideal. They're not that big because here it's illegal to offer office space without plenty of daylight.
Right, these laws absolutely should change. I would hope that any municipality facing a problem like this, with lots of empty office space, would also recognize the fact that their zoning rules are a bad idea.
Sometimes offices are empty because banks that own them dictate the lease rates and building managers can't adjust price to fit the market rate. I sometimes think city councils and codes get too much heat on this issue and the 800lb finance gorilla in the room is politely ignored.
In Tokyo you have buildings with levels of retail, restaurants, bars, karaoke, etc. I'm sure Seoul and probably other dense cities have this too. Korea Town in mid-town Manhattan also does this, but that's just one little block. I'm really surprised there's not more of this in Manhattan actually. I'm sure it exists more than I'm aware of, but it should be more prevalent in a city that dense.
I used to live in 100+ year old warehouse building converted to residential. It has even less windows than a glass paned high rise. They used the interior space exactly like this. One floor had a gym. Some floors converted the space to storage units available to the residents. Other floors had other shared common space. All ideas as you probably took 5s to come up with. It's really not a hard problem to solve that any developer worth their salt would not be able to solve.
If you can buy the building cheap enough, conventional wisdom can be thrown out the window.
I once toured a building that had been converted from an old warehouse to residential. Huge floorplate. They had built the condo units around the edges, created a hallway, and then the inside was divided up into "storage" spaces. Each condo owned the space directly across the hallway. They were very large, and people had transformed them into offices, arcades, workshops, playrooms, theaters, etc. You could do just about anything you wanted with the space, and because it wasn't "living space" you didn't have to worry so much about noise and the property taxes were lower than they otherwise would have been.
You can't sell it for a price that includes that space as "living space" either. Which goes back to the point - if you can buy the building cheap enough, you can make anything work.
Maybe, but you can't throw out the building codes. A warehouse, certainly, can be retrofit. But office towers? Almost certainly not.
Elevators are not sized for residential; electrical service not sized for residential loads (dishwasher/dryer/microwaves/ovens); HVAC not sized for residential heat loads (same as above); metering requirements means the existing electrical rooms are not large enough (they are never large enough); plumbing and sewer are not sized for residential.
It goes on and on. Even if you got the building for free, you'd still want to run the numbers to see if it's still cheaper to demolish and build again. It's not entirely clear whether it is or is not.
It can be done if you make huge, expansive apartments, which has to be read as "really expensive". There aren't that many really rich people who can drop 5 figures per month for an apartment.
I understand electrical and plumbing, but why does the HVAC need to be bigger/smaller?
HVAC has to account for the BTUs produced by all equipment. An office might have one or two refrigerators per floor, maybe a dishwasher. Apartments will have one in every apartment. Ditto for ovens, dryers. Even computers and TVs.
Offices have a lot more people per m² all of them using computer equipment continuously for 7hrs/day so in my experience they tend to have considerably higher cooling loads. I know from experience that a typical high rise office building in London, UK will have no heating requirement for most of the year; it is in cooling mode most of the time.
You have to account for peak usage, not median. At 7AM and 6PM, everybody has their stove or ovens going to make dinner, plus the washing machines and dryers.
Building codes and practices are different for commercial and residential for good reasons.
Just conjecturing, but I assume an apartment contains more ovens than an office.
Would probably make it take more cooling?
They also contain lot less people. Average person generates 70-100W at rest. Add that to what ever screens, computers, extra lighting. And it is not that big difference in load.
I've never seen a high-rise office elevator bank smaller than a residential one.
Dishwashers are negligible; microwaves are a souped-up gaming PC and run a lot less; ovens and dryers are more of a concern, but as with HVAC, I'd like proof that an office's draw (with all its attendant equipment) is more than the what you'd have with a dozen (tops) condos. Plumbing and sewer are the only legitimate concerns I've seen yet. And yet: will, way.
>you'd still want to run the numbers to see if it's still cheaper to demolish and build again
These numbers never include externalities like the carbon and refuse footprint of demolishing and rebuilding. How many million metric tons of steel and concrete do we need to dispose of if this becomes a de-facto national policy?
Most non-mechanical equipment electric loads in standard office buildings are receptacles. This is small. Per NEC, I think it's counted as 180VA/receptacle. So the 208/120V panels are sized for that.
Also, the lighting is probably 277V in an office. This precludes any owner-installed fixtures, the super has to do all of that. Moving it to 120V means more transformers, for which there isn't room without sacrificing rentable space.
HVAC, assuming CW/HW to VAV boxes, has the pumps sized for the number. Which may be less or more in residential, depending. It also precludes (or at least makes very difficult) the ability to meter HVAC usage per apartment.
The point isn't that is is impossible. It's just expensive. That expense has to be borne by somebody.
I vote for the construction companies to be held liable. That way any future office buildings they construct will be more easily converted to housing.
Tearing down good buildings and building new is wasteful and causes more pollution then repurposing. These for profit corporations externalized these costs upon us repressing.
Planning for those who plan to use planned obsolescence to generate a profit.
it's also possible for offices to be doing poorly but also still make more money than as a residential property. while vacancy rates are high, those vacancies are spread around, so some people are still renting in these office buildings. if you want to redevelop them you have to get the existing tenants out.
Are you willing to share where that building is? It sounds like a dream to me.
It was in Chicago, west of downtown
Yes west of Chinatown. Cermak I think. Spice warehouse in days of old IIRC. Was used for raves decade+ ago. Place is a trip. I camped on top of it once when I was homeless.
I've forgotten of that place for years. Truly magical. Thank you for the memory. I almost shake recalling it.
I think there are multiple of these kinds of buildings. The one I looked at would be considered West Loop these days.
I’m actually looking at “West Loop” apartments right now. Would you mind sharing the address of the building?
It sounds like maybe 165 N canal if my recollection from when I was condo shopping is correct (it was a bit above my price range, but I seriously envied the large storage space). The condo I ended up buying (a converted office building in the east loop) has a similar hall of storage rooms but they are much much smaller and not practical for anything other than storage.
Sorry, it’s been a long time and I don’t remember. I know that we were looking for places that were within a 15-20 minute walk from the Loop offices where we worked.
I read your description and thought of a building in Chicago, but there must be a few like this. The one I was thinking of is in River North along the river.
It’s a beautiful building, with roomy communal spaces and vintage timber all over. I probably would have bought there if I weren’t too noise sensitive for timber floors.
That sounds great! The thing I love most about living in a house is the prospect of “engineering space” - places to do carpentry, electronics, home maintenance etc.
Living in an apartment (assuming adequate noise isolation) is actually great otherwise.
Would a space in the center of an office tower really have enough air ventilation for ordinary hobby-maker work like sanding, soldering, painting, resin molding, grinding, etc?
Considering what some people do with basement spaces and almost no ventilation at all, I'm going to hazard a guess that a windowless interior room is not a dealbreaker.
Plus the fact that the commercial space that's being converted was often used for this sort of thing already anyway. Yes, this is mostly office space, but many engineering firms have an electronics lab or small prototyping workshop in their "office" space.
Offices have ventilation. They are usually more densely manned than apartments.
Unless they specifically tear it down during redevelopment (why would they?), there should be plenty of air circulation.
If you read the OP you will see that in one example that’s exactly what they do do - in order to reclaim the space occupied by HVAC and turn into more apartments!
If anything with large towers, I wouldn't be surprised if the HVAC is routed adjacent of the elevator shafts in the center of the floor.
Conventional wisdom is that there won't be too many windows available to throw conventional wisdom out of :-)
Especially if the windows don't open.
This is where you unconventionally put an LCD screen where a window should be, and put in HVAC systems to blow fresh air.
You jest, but if someone makes a decent enough full-spectrum daylight simulator, and then get a stamp of approval from FDA (or whichever the authority is relevant here), they stand to make a lot of money by enabling residential use of windowless spaces.
(Cue arguments on how dystopian this is. But hey, if the daylight simulator was to-spec, it wouldn't be the worst of things.)
They already have fake skylights that simulate Rayleigh scattering, but the main issue of not having window access is fire safety.
There was Munger Hall [1] but they didn't actually build it thankfully.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munger_Hall
The danger is that people will be tempted to use the unlivable space as living space, and then you get some massive fire that kills a bunch, and then reactionary laws that prohibit everything uselessly.
This is still the case with typical single family homes or apartments that end up being sublet.
Lots of basement bedrooms that don't meet egress codes.
Damn, that sounds like an ideal place to live for me. I live in an apartment but also play music. I would love to be able to set up a drum kit (and maybe store an e-bike) and still be in my walkable area for cheap ish rent.
The shape isn't always right either. Pipe fixtures can be in the wrong spot. Structural pillars can't be removed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2023/cit...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office...
Note that things such as arcades may need additional power demands that the area isn't sized for (fire risk). Workshops may need added ventilation and woodsheds would require additional power too. A theater type area could have issues with fire codes and occupancy.
I dunno if it's practical, but the idea of an urban "garage" for woodworking/storing your kayak sounds kinda awesome.
NYC has a few places like this, but typically it is living space above the ground floor, and you can rent "dont-ask-dont-tell" space in the basement. Most people use it for storage, but I've seen a few workshops in them.
I’ve seen similar, except the building had > 10 ft ceilings for some reason (it had been a factory). The owners built a ~ 9ft “building” that was missing a wall (and ceilings) inside the space. That was where the kitchen and bedrooms were. Light came in through the open wall in the kitchen, and from where the drop ceiling in the bedroom would have been. The rest of the factory floor was hobby / office / entertaining space.
It was spectacular.
Old warehouses were built very differently compared to modern office buildings. Specifically, office buildings are made to the load requirements of office spaces, with their symbolic walls and furniture. You may have trouble putting even bathtub into an apartment converted from an office.
In St Louis, the largest building in the state, which is 1.4M square feet and 44 stories, recently sold for $3.5M. It sat empty for several years despite being offered basically for free. The new owners have not announced plans for it.
It's a pretty pure test of your claim. I guess we'll see what happens.
Japan just used fiber optics to run sunlight to inside apartments for natural light in skylights. Obviously the apartments are cheaper typically, and as long as people get exposure to light like this they are generally ok.
I feel like this whole effort is not a technical problem but a cultural and financial issue. I don’t think the problem is whether it can be done, but whether the tax structure is in place to encourage it.
I feel like this whole effort is not a technical problem but a cultural and financial issue.
It's actually at end the of the day a legal problem. Building codes and fire regulations are very strict on what you can and cannot do, and most 'good' ideas people come up with to solve these problems end up being against the building codes. Without changing the building codes it doesn't matter how clever your technical solution is.
Well, to be fair, a firefighter at the end of a ladder can't evacuate someone through a fiber optic run.
Surely you can solve that by having the occupants sign a waver as part of the rental contract where they wave their rights to be evacuated or rescued in the event of a fire.
I'm pretty sure that's one of those rights you can't sign away. Fire codes are strict.
My permit says "NO building code or utility inspections will be performed."
I signed that "right" away with the county recorder, it was no problem. Been able to do that for 2 decades in my county. Turns out when people build what they like you get weird shit but little to none of the "but muh codes" fire hysteria came true.
Meanwhile California morons building with regulatory checks out the wazoo get ate up in wildfires. It's like watching actual insane people.
Yes, some places in the US DGAF, and in others there's not even a municipality to issue a permit, let alone enforce one. However, these situations typically are in places where high occupancy buildings don't exist.
But if you've read anything about disastrous fires throughout history, the reasoning for modern fire codes is rather apparent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nightclub_fires
The deadliest structure fires in history pretty much have one thing in common: people couldn't get out. There's something to be said for a homeowner who builds their own death trap, but it's a good thing that large commercial properties have to jump through hoops to ensure they don't create a death trap for hundreds of others, just to save a few bucks.
Wildfires are something else entirely -- forests are not man made and their creation is not subject to laws. You wouldn't argue that laws against murder are silly just because you could be attacked by a wild animal, would you? We regulate buildings because people build them.
I'm arguing it's a good thing California will let humans choose to man make a house wildfire trap (forest didn't pick you to put a house there) and they should apply their standard of "die in a fire if you like" to everything. I believe, counterintuitively, it will save lives.
Of course the building inspector sees the charred bodies he didn't prevent, but he doesn't see the frozen and exposed ones he created through his policies that handicap supply. The incentives of code and inspection are horribly perverse.
The point of building codes and code inspection is so that people don't put others in danger. And in the places that there is a shortage of housing, it is hardly fire code that is limiting supply. It's not as if we could leave out sprinklers and fire escapes from buildings, and all of a sudden, housing would be cheap. The limiting factors of building housing are not this.
It's not as if we could leave out sprinklers and fire escapes from buildings, and all of a sudden, housing would be cheap.
There's a lot more to fire codes than just sprinklers and fire escapes. If you could ignore all fire codes (and related requirements) then it would definitely be possible to build both more and cheaper apartments than you can now. Not saying it's necessarily a good idea, and they almost certainly wouldn't be nice places to live. But a lot of people would take unsafe, uncomfortable and affordable over safe, comfortable and completely unaffordable.
They'd be slightly cheaper and wildly more dangerous.
But given the demand inelasticity for housing, it's not even guaranteed it would be cheaper.
Have you ever built a house? It would not even be possible for me to build one with inspections, I would lose my day job. And my house was 40k to diy, do you have any idea how burdensome an up to code contractor installed sprinkler system would be against such frugal costs.
Having built my house the price and accessibility absolutely spirals out of control with code inspections. Remove this madness and let the masses do what I've done.
No US codes are going to require sprinklers in your single family home. But if someone is building a new medium-rise apartment building with hundreds of people sleeping in it, sprinklers are not a limiting factor in construction, and it is too much of a risk to build it without.
Our regulations often treat different structures in different places differently because they have different risks. That's okay. Your custom tiny home shouldn't be treated the same as an urban high rise.
forests are not man made
Most forests today kind of are, in as much that the way a forest is 'designed' is down to a whole collection of active choices made by the forest owners to intervene or not intervene in different ways. There are lots of things that one can do to mitigate the risks of forest fires, and doing or not doing those things is a choice they make.
Yes, I'm aware, but you know what I mean. Trees don't have to file for a permit before they germinate. The vast majority of trees are not planted by humans.
My point is that there is probably almost as much that can be done to mitigate forest fire risks as there is to mitigate house fire risks. We know which forests have a high risk of forest fire and we know various techniques that can be used to lower that risk. If we choose to let forests close to where people live become an unnecessarily high danger for forest fires (or let people live close to 'dangerous' forests), then that is a choice.
The vast majority of trees are not planted by humans
The vast majority of trees close to large number of humans are however owned by someone who responsible for them and gets to decide if they grow up and become big trees or not.
This hypothetical building wouldn't exist, because it would have never had a building permit issued.
Yes, this is the real problem
Windows are not just an aesthetic thing.
In the US windows are also a required means of egress from a bedroom in case of fire. Technically the requirement is two means of egress of any type, but in effect this means the door and the window, where someone can be rescued by a fire truck, escape onto a different path, etc.
I can imagine internal apartments designed with an open concept kitchen/living room and then a row of bedrooms/bathrooms off the open room. Then you could have an hallway off the back that funneled in natural light and the bedrooms/bathrooms could have windows that opened unto that. That gives you an unimpeded escape path.
The two means of egress cannot lead into the same path (the hallway) since the point is to provide an alternate escape path.
High rises don’t usually work like that for obvious reasons.
Indeed, but tradition is not necessarily the only way to have safe policies. We have many more advanced escape systems that work incredibly well these days. I’m sure there are alternative escape technologies that don’t involve windows in a skyscraper in 2024.
Windows are the cheapest second form of egress.
Punching through a new set of pressurized, fire rated stairwells would be significantly more expensive.
Wait can this be covered by just giving the bedroom two doors? That seems pretty straightforward...?
The doors need to open into different escape paths, so not the same hallway or front door. The window goes outside.
You can also install solar tubes to do something similar.
It would result in fewer units, but you could introduce "courtyards" that would act as corridors of light. It would depend on the depth of the building. You could potentially do it over two or more stories.
Alternatively sacrificing the central core of the buildings to act as light tunnel might work. Or give the deeper units over to utilities, communal areas, etc
A good architect could transform these buildings into pleasant and useful spaces. It just requires a willingness to try. Check out the youtube channel like @nevertoosmall or @kirstendirksen - I'm sure there are many others that explore topics like this.
None of that is possible without massive changes to the structure of the building. Those spaces are currently used for elevators and utilities.
Additionally, unless everyone is going to be sharing communal showers/toilets/kitchens, none of the existing utilities are run to where they would be needed for multiple residential units. Having your own bathroom and kitchen is essentially a requirement for non-marginal US housing.
Keep in mind, commercial office space construction is already more expensive (by almost an order of magnitude per sq ft) than residential, and high rise construction is more expensive than normal commercial construction.
So unless there are massive defaults and write downs/some kind of ‘great depression’ type situation, it would be doing a lot of expensive work to convert an already more expensive building to be competing in a space where everyone else did things cheaper from the beginning. Not a great formula for economic viability.
Not impossible, but the level of economic dislocation necessary to have it make sense is mind boggling.
Right, so the core of the building is elevators, hallways, and something that doesn't require light. The first use that comes to mind is resident storage. Using space on upper floors for storage isn't how you would design a residential building, but it is a useful purpose for otherwise useless interior space.
Additional leftover interior space can be used for amenities like a gym or lounge. It's not the world's most efficient use of space, but it's an efficient use of the existing space that doesn't require tearing down a building.
As long as we get the building ‘for free’ (don’t have to consider/pay for the original costs to build it), it can definitely be retrofitted for many purposes somewhat economically.
Maybe a bit like the industrial lot to condo process that happened in NYC and other places awhile ago?
It’ll be weird, but folks will adapt.
I’m not sure why folks wouldn’t just build in the ‘burbs (and work remotely) in most cases though?
...they could be used as home-offices perhaps?
When it comes to London, the 'burbs' means get into a crowded train (or wait for the next, or the one after that as they are packed in many stations) AND spend 2h per day commuting (+ the very expensive fares). As a young professional in London I would prefer to have a nice 30-40sqm (~300-400 sqf) studio in the center, close to a market/park and be 20mins door-to-door to my work.
If one of the mega-big buildings would be converted to studios, meaning they could 'slice' 20-30 studios per floor, keep one floor for gym/dry cleaners/etc. they would be making a (financial) killing.
This is addressed in TFA. There was one building the profiled architect designed where they spent the $$ to turn the elevator core into a courtyard. He was able to add back the "lost" square footage as additional floors, which made the project profitable enough to build out.
By not having elevators? How does that make any sense for any mid-rise or higher?
Addressed in the article! Apartment buildings need less elevators than offices since residents tolerate longer waits. There's still elevators, just less.
The question is why, and what's wrong with marginal housing (sounds like a great way to reduce homelessness)
The numbers show that Americans order delivery and eat at restaurants more (and cook less) than they have in recent history.
It's intriguing because while flipping and renovating kitchens to have more space - stoves, ovens, and refrigerators is on the rise, fewer families actively use the space over the last decade. (The same can be said for colleges moving from dorms to apartment style housing)
This especially applies to marginal households, but also significantly to upper middle class -> upper class and dense housing.
That's not to say it's healthy for our diets.
You’re going to see a shift in the coming years due to inflation - more folks are already eating at home anyway.
But the answer is because sometimes you do need a kitchen, even if it’s to boil some water or whatever or reheat takeout, or because your Mom is visiting and wants to make something. Sharing a kitchen is often a nightmare if you can’t control who else is sharing it - constant fights over dirty dishes being one example. They often get tied up exactly when you want to use them too.
And having your own bathroom (the two are highly correlated as both require ‘wet walls’, and custom plumbing) is great when you want some privacy, are sick, etc. or have some safety concerns.
It can get even more gross and disturbing to share those when you can’t control who you’re sharing with. It’s a common friction point to share a bathroom even with room mates. A lot of people (especially women) flat out avoid public bathrooms due to safety and ‘ick’ concerns.
Imagine if the only toilet you could use if you woke up at 2am and needed to pee was a public toilet.
There is nothing wrong per-se with marginal housing, except they tend to attract ‘marginal people’ that bring with them trouble that others don’t want to deal with if they can avoid it. It does help with homelessness and the like - but it tends to self filter into dangerous territory, because who is going to want to stay at a place where homeless people stay unless they are homeless themselves?
Sharing them is always a step down in experience. It is always cheaper though, as the kitchen and the bathroom are usually the two highest maintenance and ‘most expensive’ rooms.
Most folks stuck in those situations move out ASAP - think dorm rooms and barracks. Or homeless shelters.
Singapore is extremely far along in the ‘eat out at restaurants’ side (it used to be, most Singaporeans ate out at least a couple meals a day), and even they have kitchens and private bathrooms in all the subsidized flats.
Marginal housing was basically outlawed because of abuses, but there are various ways around it if the demand/desire is there (hotels are marginal, for example).
And yet, results in a shitty experience that residential users just won't accept...
(And yeah, it's shitty for commercial users too.)
There's something very wrong with the entire thing.
Commercial is more expensive because it is designed for higher wear, longer tenancy times, dramatically higher utilization, and more customization.
It’s common to run wiring in conduit, use hung ceiling (with space for running lots of extra services), construct the framing out of steel and concrete (instead of wood and stucco), and electrical and HVAC demands are dramatically higher. Networking needs to be more reliable and easier to manage at scale. Electrical needs are often orders of magnitude higher. Everything from locks, to outlets, to flooring needs to be sturdier to handle the increased traffic and wear.
Even a dentists office or hair dresser will need to mount heavy chairs sturdily, pull lots of extra power, and have to worry about weird chemicals or x-rays and the like hurting other tenants.
Additionally, they’re zoned to have access to high volume transit and/or parking.
It’s not a surprise why commercial is more expensive. It’s made for a different use case.
It still is only going to be ‘good enough’ most of the time. And by ‘good enough’, that means tenants pay. Anything else is usually ‘lipstick on a pig’ as it were.
Agree. Most office plates have plumbing for the equivalent of four bathrooms, max, all centered near stairs, etc. Figure you would need to 4x the existing number of toilets to make a floor residential and also link to existing central sewage lines. I don't even know what building code even looks like for that in most states.
Plumbing work is not cheap.
London has several "co-living" [1] housing units at this point, that are basically upscale house-shares for people willing to pay extra to not have to deal with the hassle of house-shares.
Yout get a self-contained flat, but kitchens etc. will be tiny, and then on top there are shared spaces like co-working facilities, lounges, cinemas, gyms, and staff arranging social events etc.
I'd imagine former office buildings could work well for many of the amenities for projects like that.
[1] https://www.culturewhisper.com/r/lifestyle/coliving_london/1...
What if every other floor were removed, so all the apartments had loft ceilings? Then light could penetrate from the upper windows deeper into the core of the building. You could even have rooms (like bathrooms or home offices) with lower ceilings and skylights.
I was thinking instead you could remove a long rectangle from the middle of each floor, so that the two remaining sides could have windows facing each other.
If you swapped the orientation of the removed rectangle on each floor, it would look rather like a Jenga tower with the middle block pushed out on each level.
In any case, the central problem (but maybe required step) of all these kinds of solutions is going to be losing 50% or so of the potential floorspace.
There's a good "odd lots" podcast about this[1]. There's another of their podcasts about how apartment zoning rules make it hard to make "family" apartments[2]. Basically you need two egress points, windows that can open, windows in kitches and bedrooms. All of these are directly in contradiction to modern office buildings with open floor plans, fixed windows, shared mechanical systems.
So it may be possible to convert offices into apartments, but it's very expensive and you end up losing a bunch of floor space.
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNkLcD3PKyk [2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76IHpt6q9ME
You're losing 100% of the floor space when it's an unused commercial building.
I'm not sure your accountant would agree.
An un or under-rented building has some potential value based on various hand-wavy factors. Things may get better next year and you've only lost a year's of potential revenue. You may be able to hand the burning bag of dog crap to some star-eyed dreamer.
Taking out a loan, applying for permits, etc, locks in the loss. You get to tell your bank the asset they've got for collateral is worth a lot less, but hey you've got a plan that involves chopping the building apart so there are big holes in it so you can rent it to residents instead of commercial leases.
Hey it's a brand new market and a wonderful opportunity to get in on the ground floor.
I'll second this - great podcast episode!
Can't recommend listening to the people being interviewed in [2] enough
The feature you are describing is a light well. They work, but I am not sure how well in the configuration you are describing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightwell
In Germany they're called "hofs" and incredibly common. Many apartments only have one view out over the hof, facing someone else's apartment 5m away. You get used to it.
Impossible to pull off on a modern office building designed with pre-tensioned concrete floors. Cheaper to demolish the building and start again.
Thanks, didn’t know the floors were also structural supports. I thought they just hung from the central core.
Oh well.
That’s an interesting idea. If there’s enough room between floors already, I wonder if you could squeeze in some horizontal periscope skylights without removing floors. Just need to occasionally send someone out to scrub the exterior window like in that show Silo
Minus the part where you’re also condemned to death I assume?
Charlie Munger was an advocate of residential buildings that have virtual windows (letting in "artificially created sunlight") instead of actual windows. Before his death he proposed such a residential building for UCSB:
https://news.ucsb.edu/2021/020455/munger-hall-qa
https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/15378-exclusive...
Needless to say, conventionally minded experts of all stripes vociferously objected to it, including architects:
https://www.architectmagazine.com/design/buildings/the-munge...
...But I wonder if maybe cities should conduct small-scale tests of Munger's ideas to find out if they help put all that abandoned office space to good use.
I don’t get the point. From what I can see, dorms construction often costs around $70,000. Munger was advocating that we get rid of windows and put students in exceptionally tiny rooms, and the cost will be about $267,000 per student? How is this an advantage?
as i understand it, the theory was that it would discourage the undergraduates from hanging out in their rooms, and force them to hang out around campus and socialize, and this would be good for them.
My experience from a long time ago was that dorm rooms were never really a place to hang out. My undergrad had rooms off a kitchen/suite area and people did hang out there. But rooms were mostly for sleeping (etc.), studying, reading, etc.
I would guess that now a lot of college kids stay locked in their rooms by themselves, swiping on their phones and playing video games.
Yes, there are good reasons conventionally minded experts of all stripes vociferously objected to it, including architects.
Charlie Munger was a weird freak who fancied himself an architect. The only thing that qualified him to design a ridiculous building for UCSB was donating an insane amount of money to UCSB.
This is conventional wisdom, but it always felt odd to me.
Loft apartments were originally created from business spaces. In the beginning, they were low cost because of some undesirable properties but have slowly become an extremely in-demand style (huge windows and tons of light being major selling points). Why was it possible to convert industrial space into living space 50 years ago but today it is not possible?
Lofts evolved from old factory and warehouses. This was in an era before air conditioning and fluorescent lighting. You needed lots of windows to light factories and lots of vertical space for convection cooling to work. Factories were at the edge of town and that town grew into a city. Eventually, the edge was closer to the center than the suburbs. And a new generation wanted to be city dwellers.
Cheap lofts were peak re-urbanization, but now they are some of the most in demand housing because of the large space and natural lighting.
Old (like early 1900s old) industrial spaces are radically different structures than commercial office real estate from the 80s and 90s.
the buildings built 100 years ago to be converted 50 years ago are very different from the buildings built 50 years ago to be converted today. Improved efficiency and optimization for purpose in building design plays some role in that.
Because industrial space needs room for very large machines, which means large volumes and good access to them.
Office cubicle farms around a services core are made up of small volumes and poor access.
Because buildings that were already old 50 years ago were built before elevators and other massive height building techniques. Look at old factory pictures, usually about three or four stories max. That’s much more adaptable than a gigafactory or a World Trade Center.
I feel like this is not that terribly different than row homes in the city. They only have windows in the front and back and the back might just be a view of the building backing up on them from the other street. These houses already have a long skinny footprint and it works fine. It doesn't seem that hard to do the same with office buildings. Additionally, amenities like a gym, laundry, community room can all be placed in the center of each floor as desired.
But a row house has a front and back door. In an office building, the entry would be in the middle. You could divide each floor up into four apartments - two long apartments stretching the width of the building, say on the East and West ends. Then two smaller apartments with windows on only one side on the North and South ends of the building.
Why not divide it into four corner apartments?
Four corner apartments work great if the floor plate is small enough to divide the floor by 4 and end up with a sensible square footage. Many office buildings are just so much bigger that this would lead to massive apartments that have few interior walls. Those are not so easy to sell. That's a reason the modern residential skyscraper is typically a narrow needle, instead of being shaped like Sears tower.
Fire codes and building codes are an impediment to modifying distance from openable windows, for bedrooms.
Novel means changing the national fire code, which was written the way it was for a reason.
I can absolutely see the safety argument for distance from a window. Fair! But I will say, as someone who made his windowless basement his bedroom even though I had other options in my home, I love a super dark space to sleep.
Yes. And in a city, it can be made more quiet.
And there are techniques to transporting natural light indoors.
This thread's obsession with bedroom windows, egress out them from 20 stories up, and "code" is nuts. We are in a housing crisis that is destroying the economic viability of several generations.
You could also have ceiling to floor OLED displays, or just a large display that shows the current view of the outside.
I also don't understand why they can't basically put large corridors across the building in addition to light transfer, more common space than hallway to provide more light if the interior residents want it.
Fundamentally, people want a safe, affordable place to sleep, go to the bathroom, and eat. Windows and views just need to be a quick walk away.
I possibly spend less than .1% of my time at home looking out a window. My bedrooms generally have the windows completely covered to maximize my sleep.
At generic hotel-motel rooms I almost never open the curtains.
It's ridiculous this isn't simply put up to market economics.
Finally I have a great idea for internal areas: simply provide them as storage units. Cheap, no water, minimal electricity, still makes money, and its one of the things people complain about city living.
Skyscraper windows aren’t usable for egress. This is a solved problem.
If the build ing is too wide, could we still do a mix use ? With residential on one side, and office on the other side / interior of the building ?
R R R R R R R
R R O O O O O
R R O O O O O
R R O O O O O
R R R R R R R
The best thing is actually to carve out the Os in your example, thus you don't pay property taxes on that space.
C = communal space/corridors/elevators.
E = empty
R R R R R R R R
R C C C C C C R
R C E E E E C R
R C C C C C C R
R R R R R R R R
WHy not do this
R R R R R R R R
R R R R R R R R
E E E E E E E E
R R R R R R R R
R R R R R R R R
If you make that central corridor wide enough the light will come in.
And regardless, convert these huge office spaces to huge apartments. If you get enough of those, the smaller residential apartments in the city will become cheaper.
These office buildings aren't making money. Who cares if you care out 3000 sq ft apartments out of it?
Here is another idea:
R R R R R R R R
R S S S S S S R
R S S S S S S R
R S S S S S S R
R R R R R R R R
You know what S is? Storage. Doesn't even have to be resident storage, it can be separately accessed/serviced elevators. Perfect for office space, since it involves no additional plumbing, and probably even less electricity, and about the same HVAC needs.
I love HN so much that we've been able to reduce this serious problem to an easy matrix representation that can be used to both demonstrate the problem and show solutions so easily.
> Could we come up with novel things to do with this deep interior space?
Yes, here's an article with great visualizations on how developers are coring out the center of repurposed office buildings in order to create columns of natural light (and how, in certain jurisdictions, this lost square footage can then be reclaimed via new construction stacked on top of the building): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office...
Or even better just give every unit multiple huge bathrooms, dens, libraries, etc...
Well of course one can even have whole floor for single family. It is a small matter of how much one can pay for the space of that size that need to be hashed out.
An office to condo conversion is going to be luxury regardless.
A friend of mine had an opportunity to build the house for himself and his family. He architected the house as - mostly - several groups of 3 spaces in each.
One is the living space. It's a cabinet, or a bedroom, or a living room with a sofa. It ought to have windows, furniture, some space to walk in between. Could be several "rooms", even with doors.
Another is the bathroom space. Shower, toilet, bathtub, sink with mirror. Doesn't really need to have windows.
And the third, most interesting, is the storage space. Shelves. Places on the floor to put bulky items, like a big vacuum cleaner. Boxes - conveniently sized, maybe labeled. Places to hang clothes. Space to walk inside, so putting an item or finding and taking one is easy. This space doesn't need to have windows.
The storage space is rather big, because you're supposed to keep all the stuff which clutters the living space there. If the storage is overflowing, well, you really have a problems with too many things, but if not - it's very convenient to use as a buffer for something which becomes unused and inconvenient.
Maybe we can structure those deeper buildings in a similar manner, so that living spaces would have windows, and miscellaneous spaces would not and would use that "depth" for non-living purposes.
Isn't that the norm already in US? I am from Europe and I have 3 living space rooms with windows taking two outer walls and inside there is bathroom and storage area with no windows?
Your bathrooms and storage spaces in apartments have windows?
Bathrooms in houses often have windows, but not always. In apartments I’ve been in it’s been about 50/50.
Definitely the classier (and older!) had windows.
In houses yeah, but in apartments, and any new developments I would definitely not expect to see windows.
If SRO units weren't illegal, they could be simpler conversions, since full plumbing would only be needed in one central place per floor.
See https://www.slowboring.com/p/legalize-housing-not-tent-encam...
Most offices already have break rooms. Sinks and dishwashers are fairly common in them. Make them a common area with a shared stove... Odds are the residents will pitch in and buy some cookware and set a policy of clean up after yourself.
Storage, laundry facilities, gyms, office-spaces (gasp!). Less-than-optimally used is still better that completely unused.
It would be pretty fantastic to have some office space still, since now it will be possible to live right next door. Or same door even!
Water and sewage drainage is also a big deal. Almost impossible to retrofit for 150 bathrooms, around the buildings, when you originally had 20, around the elevator columns.
Source: I have a friend that ran industrial plumber crews in NYC for 40 years.
We don't like to talk about pee and poop, but they are a really important consideration, in almost any human venture.
I don't buy it. Pipes are IMPOSSIBLE to increase the size? Or at some point you hit some city service with no motivation to actually provide service/infrastructure and fix the problem at that end?
I wonder if you can have septic storage for excess flow, that then releases overnight when people aren't using it. Simply time shift the maximal flow periods and maximize the flow utilization of the existing stuff.
Maybe you can use pumps to force more liquid through the pipes faster.
Or you simply put in 80 instead of 150, and find other uses for the space.
And, you know, incentivize minimal use of water.
Much of the OP addresses that question.
Can the right LED panels make up for the lack of daylight in the interior areas?
Doesn’t even have to be novel, especially if they can combine floors to make taller spaces in the inner column.
Basketball courts, tennis courts, rock climbing walls, racket ball courts, workout rooms for 20-30 person adult classes with enough room for equipment like stationary bikes, and so on. Also shops, lots of small specialty shops like you’d find in a mixed use city with cheap real estate.
Plenty of opportunity to build third places into the inner column, outfitted with artificial skylights and ample plants to simulate outdoors.
What they would do with a space like this in nearly every place on earth except America is make it a marketplace.
I think a big benefit would be reworking code to make a way to safely allow interior units. They wouldn't be nice without natural light but it's a way to make a lot of units available cheaply.
Just a reminder that lofts used to once be the least desirable places to live. It wasn't until people figured out how to live in them that they became cool and desirable.
Imagine having your bedrooms in the front facing parts of a building for natural light and your office and workshops in the unlit parts. I _need_ a few garage worth of useless space for storage and work area with ventilation. Something that these buildings excel at providing.
I’ve lived for a while in a former factory downtown in a city. Every single floor had a completely different layout. Bathrooms were not aligned above one another, room numbers varied widely, some rooms had a better view than others (read: wall in front of a window). But, it worked! The location was great, it was a perfectly fine apartment overall.
I’m unsure what convention needs to be challenged. Fitting rooms on a weird floor plan is totally doable.
Separate the internal hallways, convert the outside to residential, keep the inside commercial but redevelop it to support mixed office buildings and retail. Give the bottom floor a mall entrance.
These problems rely on a particularly rigid definition of what housing is. If your house had a back room with no natural light, that would be be far from convenient. But would you accept it if it cost half as much? I bet you would.
There are probably safety reasons why every room must have natural light. How hard is it to make a sideways light tube?
Yes, the wealthy can have apartments with windows around the outer parameter and the poor can live in the center with no natural sunlight.
What about common spaces? Put the dwellings on the outer edges, and use the middle of each floor around the elevators as: gyms, libraries, swimming pools, saunas, indoor sports/games (pickleball? table tennis? air hockey? retro arcade machines?), meeting rooms and small-event spaces for residents? maybe a food court with 3rd party vendors? All kinds of creative things can be done!
If you read the article carefully, you'll see clues to why this developer can make it work in spite of conventional wisdom:
1. He picks his buildings carefully. His projects are "market rate", so he has to work out the conversion cost, inventory yield, and rental rates to find good candidates.
2. He includes rooms without windows and labels them as storage, work-from-home offices, or something else that does not need a window to be legal. But (wink-wink) he fully expects that these will be counted as bedrooms by potential renters.
Charlie Munger did it.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/29/business/ucsb-munger-hall/ind...
I know there is an HN thread.
Pickleball courts!!
SROs could use regular buildings with centralized plumbing. Bedrooms can do without natural light. Zoning laws can be changed.
In cities where people are renting out living rooms, closets as sleeping areas I think windowless units would definitely be viable. Hong Kong has cage bunks, SF has adult dorm rooms.
There are plenty of things that people would be happy to do with cheap urban space in deep/narrow apartment conversions in post-WWII office buildings. I'd enjoy having a workshop and lots of bicycle parking.
The problem is that the current owners of these buildings, as well as their creditors, made plans based on these buildings being expensive urban space. The same is true of city governments, which often have budgets dependent on city center commercial space paying a lot of property taxes. It will take years, and likely lawsuits and ownership changes, for people to accept that prices for these buildings are unlikely to recover.
I don't think the shape of office buildings is a problem, you can just have stores and storage on the inside and apartments on the outside.
The bigger problem IMO is retrofitting a bunch of buildings that have been built with plumbing in only very select areas to have plumbing ubiquitously.