7 ms·
Malls as coworking space would be literally the arcologies of dystopian cyberpunk. No windows, no natural light, never going outside in the real, natural world
by freddie_mercury 6y ago
Malls as coworking space would be literally the arcologies of dystopian cyberpunk.
No windows, no natural light, never going outside in the real, natural world. Just one giant homogenised hermetically sealed world.
It wouldn't be "best" for many people.
Maybe "convenient" for bosses who don't like how much productivity they lose when a Meat Flavoured Productivity Unit has to go get a haircut or imbibe sustenance....
- samatman 6y agoOk but the perfect isn't the enemy of the good here. Being able to go for a climate-controlled one-kilometer walk every lunch break is a real luxury for a lot of people, it's way better than a cell in some high-rise near the highway. The mall could have a hackerspace too! It has potential.
- ethbr0 6y agoNot to mention less traffic, as malls tend to be more distributed and closer to suburban housing than CBDs.
- vasco 6y agoThe simple solution is work from home because most people already have a home, and simple solutions win. The only reason you're mentioning malls is because they are there, but unless you're a mall-walker on the weekends, I'm pretty sure the average developer's definition of a good lunch break isn't "walking past the mall McDonald's 3 times before returning to your mall wework" or whatever.
- Grimm1 6y agoI don't want to work from home every day though and neither do a lot of people.
- emodendroket 6y agoI have loved not commuting and I have a comfortable setup but I can’t honestly say that it hasn’t been a big problem being unable to get people’s answers to quick questions for days on end.
- Grimm1 6y agoIn my case I live in a 1br apartment where before the pandemic I was basically never home except to sleep and maybe on the weekend. Which I prefer, now having it be everything from office to social space and living space is very uncomfortable.
- harikb 6y ago> because most people already have a home Assuming that everyone has a comfortable and spacious home with a desk&chair area is, well, a bad assumption. A bunch of people I know are now working significantly more time from a couch, in a clearly non-ergonomic position. We will see and hear about the real damage 5 years from now.
- noir_lord 6y agoWe are 3 up (two adults, 1 child) in a 2 bed flat (apartment) with no garden and for the last year both my partner and I have been WFH full time (in my case I changed job to one that is 100% remote forever). I couldn't agree more, the transition for me was trivial - I'm a developer who plays games, I already had a nice chair, two 27" 4K displays and a fast desktop so for me my hardware/comfort improved - for my partner work issued her a just about passable laptop and..well that was it. With the lack of space I used a spare 27" monitor I had putting it on the boys desk with a decent external mouse/keyboard and we bought him a gaming chair - that way my partner can use his room as an office while he's at school/his fathers but yeah it's not be great for her. We are moving next year and my only criteria for the house is at has to have either a large brick built garage or a concrete garage and space for an office pod in the garden, working from home around a near-teenager was challenging (and frankly that's just gonna get worse) and long term not something I want - I need quiet solitude to work most comfortably.
- cableshaft 6y agoOooh, garden office pod sounds intriguing. Do you have a good example of what sort of office pod you'd like to have?
- noir_lord 6y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuFcc2aNkp8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuFcc2aNkp8 something like one of these.
- lowercased 6y ago"around a near-teenager ... and long term not something I want..." "long term" they won't be a near-teenager, or even teenager. ;). I do understand the quiet solitude for work issue though.
- chrisco255 6y agoIf they add a free arcade, I'm in.
- _Understated_ 6y agoAnecdata, but the company I moved to a few months ago have 18 staff: only 3 of us have a dedicated work space (from the morning standups that I can see). My brother works from home now and he's either in his living room or kitchen and my sister has just moved house and has converted one of the bedrooms to an office but prior to that worked from her dining room. I've worked from home for a few years and have an office (spare bedroom we didn't use) so it's no big deal for me. I'd love to see a large-scale survey around home office working.
- viraptor 6y ago> my sister has just moved house and has converted one of the bedrooms to an office This is an interesting change happening in many places now and I wonder how it will impact the higher end of the market (and expectations) in a long term. Some people in larger houses recently went from 4 bedrooms with lots of space to 1 bedroom, 1 nursery, 2 offices. (yes, nice problem to have in practice, but still interesting)
- beambot 6y agoThere are plenty of malls in SF Bay Area that actually have good & healthy options instead of McDonalds. That's a solvable problem -- just like how some tech companies have amazing cafeterias.
- citizenkeen 6y agoWhy are you assuming developers?
- emodendroket 6y agoNot sure that everybody having large home offices is simpler or more practical.
- samatman 6y agoI work for an all-remote company so there has been literally no change in my work life as a result of the pandemic. It's not for everyone! Even for me, if there was a mall in my area, which had coworking, an attached hackerspace and, let's say, a gym? I would pick up a minimal "grab a desk" coworking package. Why not? Sometimes being around people is nice. Sometimes there's lawn work or construction happening near my house. I could make a thermos of coffee and a protein shake first thing in the morning, head to coworking, get some stuff done, hit the gym, have my choice of food court meals, and head home for a shower and a quiet afternoon at home. Or call it a soft half-day and spend the afternoon working on something with circuit boards, or just shooting the breeze with the hackers. Gosh this is sounding really nice! Anyone finds a setup like this, let me know!
- beambot 6y agoMalls can definitely obtain natural lighting if architected properly (eg sky lights and light pipes) -- malls are no different than other commercial offices. For example: I used to work at GoogleX's "San Antonio station", which was a converted shopping mall, and it had great lighting, even on lower floors. With multiple employers in same building, you'd also have many more socializing options -- including random colleagues who drop by to run errands. Besides, what would you suggest instead -- let them turn into suburban blight?!
- circleit 6y agoVertical aquaponics farms. Organic fresh produce and protein for every area produced locally.
- vkou 6y agoIndoor square footage is not, and will never will be a relevant constraint on food production. At $400/square foot to build a mall, and $XY/square foot/year to maintain it, the only thing that makes financial sense to grow in one is black market marijuana.
- admax88q 6y agoThey're already a suburban blight. Just teat them down. Put a park there instead.
- beambot 6y agoWhere does the money come from? Cities are cash-strapped, which makes demolition & park development unlikely. Existing property owners aren't exactly in the business of giving away prime realestate or operating charities -- they'd probably opt for more suburban housing developments.
- pharmakom 6y agoCities are cash strapped due to low density sprawl, of which malls are just one kind.
- xwdv 6y agoWhat kind of malls do you have in your area to have no natural light? Pretty much every mall I’ve ever been to has tons of skylights and rooftop windows.
- freddie_mercury 6y agoThat's generally only in the common areas, not in the retail spaces that make up the vast majority of the actual floorplan and where any converted offices would actually be.
- chrisco255 6y agoYeah but that could be redesigned. They could punch some holes in the external facing sides of the former retail stores and add some glass. They could add more skylights on the roof and funnel them down too.
- laylomo2 6y agoMalls are already coworking spaces. People already work in them, full time, for different companies.
- beambot 6y agoLet me be more concise: convert some of the dying big-box stores into open-office WeWork/Regus-style workspaces for white-collar desk workers.
- laylomo2 6y agoAccording to the person I was responding to, that apparently would be an “arcology of dystopian cyberpunk”. So it’s not cyberpunk when people work for dying big box stores, but it is when OP works in a WeWork located in the same mall?
- JKCalhoun 6y agoLogan's One On One
- prpl 6y agoI think it’s fairly easy to rebuild an average 2-3 story department store into a large office building with many windows.
- barry-cotter 6y agoI’m not an architect but I doubt that. Refitting a building is expensive and buildings designed for one purpose are not going to be awesome for another unless your extremely lucky. Specialization is real. That said you could definitely retrofit the average department store building into reasonable offices.
- cortesoft 6y agoMost of the malls here in Los Angeles are outdoors. The shops are indoors, but the walkways are outdoors.
- raverbashing 6y ago> No windows, no natural light, never going outside in the real, natural world. Just one giant homogenised hermetically sealed world. Malls in the US are like that. But not everywhere (I'm gonna be honest, US malls are not the greatest)
- bluepizza 6y agoI would argue that there's very little of "natural world" when you are downtown of any decent sized city. And you don't see any of it on any week day.
- csomar 6y ago> No windows, no natural light, never going outside in the real, natural world. I think it's a US thing. Many malls have significant sun-light, though not for the stores (I think this is done on purpose so that you are not distracted and focus on the goods). This could be re-purposed, however. Concrete walls get removed and replaced by glass.
- ddelt 6y agoI’m not necessarily disagreeing, but have you ever been to the open air mall in Waikiki, Hawaii? It’s pretty great
- SquibblesRedux 6y agoI think you have described Logan's Run. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_(film)
- emodendroket 6y agoHave you considered that when the mall was prosperous there were already a ton of people working there?