Also for many office buildings, the lease span (the distance from the core of the building to the exterior) is much longer than that of a residential building.

Also for many office buildings, the lease span (the distance from the core of the building to the exterior) is much longer than that of a residential building. This means that your ratio of window to floor area is smaller than you'd want for a residence--you either have very long, narrow, awkward bedrooms, or a lot of unused space toward the interior of the building. You can't have a bedroom without a window. There have been some efforts in NYC to explore allowing "bedrooms" that don't have windows, probably because there's interest in making use of some of these spaces in this fashion.