3 ms·

Better hurry up and convert them to (desperately needed) housing...

theptip 4y ago
This is harder than it sounds, impossible in some cases (commercial floorplates don’t really work for residential units in many cases). But a fine idea where it can work. Note that commercial rents at something like 10x the cost of residential per square foot, so this represents a huge loss for developers, and therefore there is a big incentive to hold on and bet that the market will pick up again.
- xnx 4y ago
  > commercial floorplates don’t really work for residential units in many cases Certainly not for the traditional concept of residential, but there are a lot of ways to reimagine residential that could be compatible (all electric, shared bathrooms, etc.)
  - HALtheWise 4y ago
    Is it possible to solve the plumbing problem by just installing pumps under each unit's bathroom? Pumped sewage systems are common in some places where soil conditions and environmental concerns make it difficult to install underground sewage infrastructure.
  - theptip 4y ago
    I think a big intractable part of the problem is the location of the windows (i.e. exclusively on the outside of the building). Big floorplates just don't have enough windows to utilize the space well for residential, since building codes require all bedrooms to have windows, so your living area would be interior and have none. Like if you take a 1-2k sqft pie slice of the center-to-window of a floorplate it ends up being extremely awkward to lay out a desirable apartment on that. I'm here for the general idea of rethinking residential though; personally I think we do more harm than good by requiring all bedrooms to have windows. Cheap pod apartments could be strongly preferable for many working-class folks that presently commute 1.5+ hours into metropolitan areas. But making that work would require a deep rethinking of permitting and zoning.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > ...but there are a lot of ways to reimagine residential that could be compatible (all electric, shared bathrooms, etc.) And windows. Sure there are ways to "reimagine" residential to accommodate office floorplans, but I feel that for the most part those "reimagings" would be at best depressing and probably worse. "Windowless SRO room" is not an acceptable living situation for most, and you could probably do much better with a different building on the same land.
    - riskneutral 4y ago
      The vacant office spaces will be converted to data centers. What was once a sea of beige cubicles and coffee stained grey carpet, and human occupants, will be replaced with racks of glimmering LEDs and GPUs running AI models that will have replaced many of the same humans' jobs. One day what is YOUR cubicle might be occupied by a GPU cluster running a GPT 5.0 model fine-tuned to do YOUR job. What role most humans will play in that world, if any, remains ambiguous and the standard of their living accommodations is mostly certainly up in the air. Maybe GPT 5.0 will decide that the best use of some office towers is conversion to "windowless SRO rooms," in order to herd all the unemployed humans into an AI robot controlled "New Kowloon Walled City." Of course not all of of the floor plans in "New Kowloon" will repurposed only into "residential" spaces. Some sections will need to house automated logistical warehouses, in order to deliver Amazon packages and groceries to the human "residents." It's even possible that GPT 5.0 will decide that it makes sense to repurpose some of the offices into small, automated factories, like the noodle factories in Kowloon. Let's hope we can reach this utopia before a crash in the commercial office market brings down the whole house cards for real this time around.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      The shared bathroom idea to me is the most depressing part. I could deal with a lack of windows I guess (put up a big TV screen with a video feed from the outside), but having to share a bathroom with strangers is gross.

This is harder than it sounds, impossible in some cases (commercial floorplates don’t really work for residential units in many cases). But a fine idea where it can work. Note that commercial rents at something like 10x the cost of residential per square foot, so this represents a huge loss for developers, and therefore there is a big incentive to hold on and bet that the market will pick up again.

xnx 4y ago
> commercial floorplates don’t really work for residential units in many cases Certainly not for the traditional concept of residential, but there are a lot of ways to reimagine residential that could be compatible (all electric, shared bathrooms, etc.)
- HALtheWise 4y ago
  Is it possible to solve the plumbing problem by just installing pumps under each unit's bathroom? Pumped sewage systems are common in some places where soil conditions and environmental concerns make it difficult to install underground sewage infrastructure.
- theptip 4y ago
  I think a big intractable part of the problem is the location of the windows (i.e. exclusively on the outside of the building). Big floorplates just don't have enough windows to utilize the space well for residential, since building codes require all bedrooms to have windows, so your living area would be interior and have none. Like if you take a 1-2k sqft pie slice of the center-to-window of a floorplate it ends up being extremely awkward to lay out a desirable apartment on that. I'm here for the general idea of rethinking residential though; personally I think we do more harm than good by requiring all bedrooms to have windows. Cheap pod apartments could be strongly preferable for many working-class folks that presently commute 1.5+ hours into metropolitan areas. But making that work would require a deep rethinking of permitting and zoning.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > ...but there are a lot of ways to reimagine residential that could be compatible (all electric, shared bathrooms, etc.) And windows. Sure there are ways to "reimagine" residential to accommodate office floorplans, but I feel that for the most part those "reimagings" would be at best depressing and probably worse. "Windowless SRO room" is not an acceptable living situation for most, and you could probably do much better with a different building on the same land.
  - riskneutral 4y ago
    The vacant office spaces will be converted to data centers. What was once a sea of beige cubicles and coffee stained grey carpet, and human occupants, will be replaced with racks of glimmering LEDs and GPUs running AI models that will have replaced many of the same humans' jobs. One day what is YOUR cubicle might be occupied by a GPU cluster running a GPT 5.0 model fine-tuned to do YOUR job. What role most humans will play in that world, if any, remains ambiguous and the standard of their living accommodations is mostly certainly up in the air. Maybe GPT 5.0 will decide that the best use of some office towers is conversion to "windowless SRO rooms," in order to herd all the unemployed humans into an AI robot controlled "New Kowloon Walled City." Of course not all of of the floor plans in "New Kowloon" will repurposed only into "residential" spaces. Some sections will need to house automated logistical warehouses, in order to deliver Amazon packages and groceries to the human "residents." It's even possible that GPT 5.0 will decide that it makes sense to repurpose some of the offices into small, automated factories, like the noodle factories in Kowloon. Let's hope we can reach this utopia before a crash in the commercial office market brings down the whole house cards for real this time around.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    The shared bathroom idea to me is the most depressing part. I could deal with a lack of windows I guess (put up a big TV screen with a video feed from the outside), but having to share a bathroom with strangers is gross.