Why We Should Live in Our Office Buildings
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In this video, we explore the crisis of empty office buildings in both urban and suburban locations. Common solutions include repurposing these structures for mixed use or residential. Recent conversions like the Chicago Tribune Tower have little complications or risk. But newer office structures are much more difficult logistically. Further, many suburban office parks just don’t offer the economic incentive that vibrant urban locations do. We need to be smart about what we do with these buildings and identify all the factors in deciding their future.
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Architecture with Stewart is a TH-cam journey exploring architecture’s deep and enduring stories in all their bewildering glory. Weekly videos and occasional live events breakdown a wide range of topics related to the built environment in order to increase their general understanding and advocate their importance in shaping the world we inhabit.
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Stewart Hicks is an architectural design educator that leads studios and lecture courses as an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also serves as an Associate Dean in the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts and is the co-founder of the practice Design With Company. His work has earned awards such as the Architecture Record Design Vanguard Award or the Young Architect’s Forum Award and has been featured in exhibitions such as the Chicago Architecture Biennial and Design Miami, as well as at the V&A Museum and Tate Modern in London. His writings can be found in the co-authored book Misguided Tactics for Propriety Calibration, published with the Graham Foundation, as well as essays in MONU magazine, the AIA Journal Manifest, Log, bracket, and the guest-edited issue of MAS Context on the topic of character architecture.
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This video should be named "USA rediscovering mixed zoning". We in EU cherish the fact we live up to 200m from nearest grocery shop and within 5km of our workplace. Hope this works out for you. Cheers from Croatia.
But then how will our horrible,stressful, exhausting, expensive, polluting car culture survive!?! Won’t someone think of the poor oil companies!!!
"We in EU cherish the fact we live up to 200m from nearest grocery shop and within 5km of our workplace. "
Most white collar workers in the suburban US live within 1000m of a grocery store and now have an option to work from home.
@@josephp.1919 "But then how will our horrible,stressful, exhausting, expensive, polluting car culture survive!?!"
Working from home outside of a smelly city helps avoid most of that. Meanwhile, we can drive to do the other stuff at hours that aren't as busy.
i forgot croatia existed.
@@wisenber Once most vehicles and plant are electric you'll realise that it's not the city that was smelly and noisy. The car free city centres in the Netherlands are surprisingly peaceful even when busy. It's a real eye opener to visit.
We really messed up society when we created hard zoning that opened up such vast distances between work and home; not only has it decreased quality of life through wasted time, pollution and traffic, but this paradigm creates our car-centric design crisis within cities, which has greatly burdened our public and personal finances to the point of creating a looming insolvency catastrophe... So when I see things like this happening, it gives me hope that we're on our way to undoing the damage and returning to a more natural work/home dynamic mixed-use paradigm.
Just lets be sure that the people that work in the offices, clean and mantain them can afford to live in the same area..... is this even possible?
@@besanit4937 I couldn't agree more with you, especially because I am one of the ones who cleans professionally and there are way too many places I can't afford to live on what I make.
Its also a very american thing. In most euro and asian cities there is not this hard difference between work and housing
all of this is by design my friend
@@besanit4937you can’t afford to live in the cities because of regulations that doesn’t allow affordable housing, like parking minimums regulations and not allowing row houses.
Living in college dorms were some of tbe best times in my life. Imagine a mall being converted to a mix of commercial and residential use spaces. Walk out your door and you're immediately surrounded by stores, restaurants, a movie theatre right downstairs. It'd be dope af.
Mark this and come back when you're an adult see if you still feel the same
sounds like a dystopian nightmare. Perhaps people who describe habitats as 'dope af' shouldn't be in charge of house planning.
@@10pmmemes88 More dystopian than having to drive for half an hour each way to get to civilization? People who think car centric suburbs are a good idea shouldn't be in the charge of zoning.
@@10pmmemes88 I like the idea. Maybe not for myself, but I can see the appeal, and I've never used the expression "dope as F," but if you want t say it I won't judge you.
There's a mall like this that got demolished and fully rebuilt as mixed use over the course of about 8 years in Kirkland WA, called totem lake village. Lots of luxury apartments surround a "lifestyle center" with an outdoor mall, restaurants and a theater. The place is fun to visit but living there seems weird/only for people with lots of money. I think my ideal community would be a toned down version of this. Modest apartments with low rent, but maybe surrounded by bikeable small businesses and community gardens. Something inspired by eastern Europe and maybe Amsterdam mixed together. Biking + Commie blocks but up to US code standards that yoy are allowed to decorate as you wish, without the super conservative Russian or Serbian culture. I'm nostalgic for Capitol Hill of Seattle in the early 2000s I guess.
BEST home I ever had was an apartment in a city centre. The building was previously a hotel, which gradually became run down through the years, and then it was converted to a residential apartment building. It was directly across the road from the office block where I worked. The convenience of living "next door" to work, and city centre living, was a dream after the dreary daily commute to & from the suburbs. Personally I think converting unused office / commercial space (where practical) into residential space is an excellent idea.
did you get affordable rent from that? that sure sounds dope if rent is affordable compared to salary.
@@effexon I was lucky enough to buy "off plan" before the building was marketed to the general public, so purchased it for a very reasonable rate.... worked out cheaper than the house we previously lived in out in the suburbs.
@@effexon “affordable rent” does not mean what u think it does. You’re talking about reasonable rent.
I'm always surprised how special such live situation sounds to americans, while it is the common case hundreds of european cities. Car-centric city design + single-use zoning are the worst what could happen to your towns and I really hope that things will change during the next decades.
@@TMtheScratcher You sound so pretentious
I saw a story about an empty office building in LA and thought "why don't they just make it into housing" , thank you for your video explaining why it might not be as easy as I thought
theres a huge, triangle-shaped office tower in downtown LA on the west side of the 110 that was a huge failure when it was built because there was massive oversupply of office space at the time. It's since been converted into condos and hotel rooms, and its extremely nice inside
My mind goes always to plumbing right away - highly necessary, expensive to build, will directly affect the structural integrity of any buildings so demands competent and also expensive workforce…. just sounds like a logistical nightmare to plan. But is nice to see is becoming way more common than what I assumed.
This is incredibly solvable: fight to change city building zoning to require builders to design and stub for flexible future housing use. The problem with current conversions is that the buildings are essentially one-use disposable. As a society we choose the current mess, but we do not have to. Read How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand to learn more.
It doesnt make sense to me.... people literally working there all day seems to prove that you can live there, because what does change?
@@Hrotriks they need the infrastructure for bathrooms and kitchens. My office doesn’t have gas hookups for stoves nor space for showers or bathtubs.
One of the reasons office occupancy is so low where I live is that the rents have remained high, even in empty buildings. Commercial real estate has been very slow to respond to the changing economics.
In Nov 2019 our lease was up. I told the landlord we’d re-sign the 3 year lease but not with a price hike since commercial space has been overbuilt in our area. He said, “commercial real estate only increases in price. We’ll let it sit before having stagnant rent, ever!” 3.5 years later, it’s still empty but credit to him, he’s stuck to his position. Anyway, it seems their culture is to never drop prices.
@@Joshcodes808 They expect twice the return compared to residential, which is merely exploitation of businesses. The selling prices are low. In Greece they sometimes expect you to pay for the full propertty price within 7 to 10 years of rental. Some of these spaces have been unused for 4 or 5 years.
@@Joshcodes808 This reminds me of Louis Rossmann's experience shopping for retail space in New York. Buildings will sit empty for years on end because the rent is insane.
@@rmo9808 It's our own fault for allowing corporations to have tax write offs for "lost revenue."
This is so true; the economic signals are really contradicting each other & I've been baffled as to why nothing's mind down after being so obviously inflated.
Well done. I myself work in a suburban office building. Since the Pandemic our office attendance has never been the same. I myself go there a day or two out of the week. Working remotely has been so convenient that everyone is taking advantage of it. My Firm is currently evaluating what they will do after our lease is due in Two years.
My company actually gave up our office space in Evanston just north of Chicago. We've gone almost completely remote. And a lot of us took the opportunity to move to new areas while keeping our jobs.
you might will hate it in a couple years, talking from experience. the best solution for me is to have an office in biking or walking distance. separation without dreading commute
Yes, we have multiple floors in an expensive building in a city center. Most are only onsite two days per week. Some moved to full time remote. I'm sure our footprint will shrink when the lease is renewed in a couple of years.
I wish that was happening here. Businesses are forcing everyone back to the commute. City centres and commutes are horrible for dogs and having grass and growing plants and breathing fresh air. Not to mention noise issues in the city.
@@Dontstopbelievingman Well, it was a smaller adjustment for us. We've had work from home options for over a decade. Used to be up to 2 days/week, now it's 3. It's clear that the building is very empty most days compared to 2019. Lots of commercial spaces are for rent in our downtown business areas as retail and restaurants have folded. I assume much of that is due to the lack of foot traffic since 2020. It's busier than 2020 - 2021 but still much lighter than 2019.
After having lived in two different but very suburban apartment complexes, I'd say HELL YEAH to living in a converted 70's/80's/90's era generic box suburban office building in an office park. The construction seems like a lot higher quality, no squeaky floors, better soundproofing, windows that actually have an insulating value(even if no outdoor space), maybe an HVAC system that actually works and isn't undersized because the developers were cheap bastards. Plus a couple of the office parks I'm thinking of in the Nashville area actually have sidewalks/are in walking distance of restaurants/bars/grocery stores. Also all these buildings have elevators, those stairs on the 3rd floor walkup with everybody having 10' ceilings got real damn old, real damn quick.
This channel has become my go-to information source about Chicago. So many interesting things about that city that I didn't know.
I know more about Chicago than cities I've lived in 😂
Legend has Chicago is architects' wet dream.
The TH-cam channel, Its History, focuses on Chicago quite a bit.
This channel really helped me see how great the city is. Prior I only heard about the high crime and such but now that I know more about it, I can see how cool it is and hope to go there for some time in future.
@@mamotalemankoe3775 It's quite tourist-friendly, so come visit!
We have a similar situation here. The old North Little Rock High School (the infamous Little Rock Central High's architectural little sister) is sitting empty and in need of a new purpose, but the school district and the city government say it would cost too much to renovate due to its NRHP listing (which also, thankfully, keeps it from being demolished like they would have so eagerly liked). Renovating into small business studio spaces or loft apartments seems like a logical step. Plenty of other old schoolhouse buildings around the city have done that already, but they also aren't on/next to an active campus (they built the replacement campus behind it), yet plenty of schools function in mixed development zones.
It just seems like those in charge have a lack of vision and are unwilling to listen to those with actual experience on the matter... shocking, I know.
Well done Stewart! This is a difficult problem, and while I certainly don't think that every office park and shopping mall needs to be preserved, some of them are amazing structures.
About 25 years ago I was involved in a project in lower Manhattan to convert an office building near Wall Street into loft-style apartments. The building dated from about 1910, and like the Tribune tower, the floor-plate was small enough to allow for residential conversion, with operable windows, etc. A lot of similar projects were being undertaken at the same time in lower Manhattan, and while some of the projects were better than others, overall it was very positive for the neighborhood. The Wall Street area used to be a ghost town after hours and on weekends, and now it's a vital, mixed-used neighborhood.
But how do we deal with more recent office buildings with huge floor plates and hermetically sealed windows? That's really a tough one. I would only say that most people who worked in buildings like that found the buildings very unpleasant places to work, particularly those who worked in the cubicles filling the central space. Yet some of them are very important buildings that really need to be preserved. For example, I would hate to see the Seagram building demolished because it cannot be adapted to a different use.
I could see the large spaces being converted to activity places like a gym or playground, or I could see even retail shops in the center spaces with the exterior windows being the large hallways wrapping around the shops.
I'd love to see more of these massive buildings for the elderly too. Where they are close to public transport and the pharmacy and hairdressers are downstairs 😊 when family visits it's easy to go out and grab a bite or such ❤
People need to come before buildings, If it cannot serve a function moving forward it should be scrapped. Preserving these old buildings for the sake of it needless drives up the cost of land.
Trying to preserve a tower which cannot be used for housing for its architectural value seems like a "first-world problem" in a country with a huge housing affordability and homelessness crisis
@@louiscypher4186 We can do both. If certain billionaires + millionaires weren't being disgusting greedy piggies, we could house all people. Old buildings aren't the ones taking food from our mouths & withholding shelter from those without homes. You can blame that on people + policies, which is also how to fix them.
Preserving things often means preserving the human ingenuity + labour + craft + techniques that went into them. There's no shortage of knowledge we lost as a species bc we allowed (or genocided) that knowledge to fall back into the realm of the unknown.
This isn't an either/or situation.
Not to mention that it takes A LOT of resources to decommission a building, so when people like you are all, "aw just bulldoze it bc people are more important" maybe consider how much money will be dumped into making it a big hole instead of a building --- money that could be going to help feed/house those people you seem so worried about.
Not getting the impression you thought this thru.
I live in downtown San Francisco, and there is SO much office space here. All the tech giants/startups are on their way out. SF is one of the most vacant business districts I believe
Mixed use is the secret. Imagine not having to leave the building. Live work and shop. That would take care of window less areas.
I would think that water ( fresh and black) is a bigger problem .
Very informative! We have the opposite issue in Atlanta. High rise residential units are going up on on every corner. Most folks have returned to the office as evidenced by the heavy rush hour traffic. However, malls designed in the 80’s and 90’s are dying in favor of open air live, work, play and shop developments. We are still heavily dependent on cars due to the lack of vision for public transit.
I wonder why the pattern's different where you are...why do you think the pattern changed there?
@@picahudsoniaunflocked5426 I know this is a 5 months old comment, but I can answer this. Brian Kemp.
His assets are listed as a few corporate office buildings, and a small company to oversee them.
As someone who wants to own my own apt/condo, if they can repurpose it, go for it. If not, burn it down :/ I honestly don't care about why or how it was built. I really hope local govs can shill out subsidies or something. NYC real estate is still on full denial lmao.
Offices really suck. I didn't get a full window until 4-5yrs into my career. I WFH and I get to see my city's skyline and fresh sunlight all the time.
I lived in a former office building (converted) for almost 3 years and it was great. Amazing location, spacious apartment and it was also a great value for money. 10 mins walk to work/city centre. 2 min walk to a main railway station, shops and everything you need is around the corner. Converted office buildings are great, maybe not to live there your entire life but it definitely is very convenient when you have a busy schedule as you don't waste time commuting to the city
When you purchase a piece of historic architecture - you are not the owner - you are the custodian.
I say this as the owner of a 60s modernist home in Oregon. I feel it is my duty to not let this old house rot - but to preserve its beauty, and authenticity for future generations.
& knowledge. People take the knowledge for granted, but there's legit tons of knowledge embedded in buildings, & lots of architectural techniques were degraded or lost over the years bc no one thought they were worth saving.
Incroyable.
That's a very noble outlook on historic home ownership. I really like historic districts, so thank you for your service.
I currently live in an office building that was converted to condos in 2007. It’s great. High ceilings, super quiet (0 noise between units or floors). Little weird layout for parking garage and workout facilities, but overall cool. Not exactly mixed use though. Would be nice to have some more walkable restaurants nearby. There is a super good bike trail right next to it though.
My girlfriend is currently designing an office-to-residence conversion; right off the bat, it could be more economically viable. It's more expensive than just rebuilding the buildings; add to it the difficulty of avoiding mechanical and structural features that create oddly shaped and unlivable units means that conversions aren't a great idea for all but the most historically valuable buildings.
The Loop is the fastest growing neighborhood in Chicago, all of this right through the Pandemic.
It’s changing commuter patterns and even restaurant hours.
I'm surprised he didn't mention the office-residential conversions proposed for LaSalle street in the Loop. That project looks very exciting.
@@supermilkchan123 I'm glad you mentioned this. I thought I heard something about this and you've confirmed it. Every time I bike or walk past LaSalle, it's far quieter than it used to be or should be. This town needs more housing, esp. affordable housing, and all these office building vacancies seem to be a good fit.
I can't speak for Chicago, but here in NYC, we have a serious EXCESS of "luxury residential" that just sits empty. Most of it replaced buildings that once had affordable housing. I know there has been talk of converting midtown office buildings into residential, but that is truly unrealistic for all but the smaller, older buildings. But even the smaller buildings would require massive renovation- esp with plumbing. These buildings also don't often have any sort of service entrance- so bringing in building materials is difficult. And the apartments wouldn't be "affordable" in the end- only
more "luxury" units - in an area that no one would want to live in. Maybe converting them into short-term rental units would be a better idea.
On the subject of office spaces, I wish that companies would recognize that max performance from extroverts and introverts (about 15% of the population) come from very different environments. Extroverts may thrive in the open office spaces, introverts often do much better in closed spaces.
If we had invested in cities as much as we subsidized suburbs over the past 50 years we wouldn't have to worry about empty office buildings now.
It's not particularly attractive outside, but in Calgary they revived a dead mall by adding a residential tower geared towards seniors, since that particular mall already had organically attracted multiple medical facilities on-site (clinics, labs, imaging centres, pharmacies, etc) plus there's a Walmart, big grocery store, & a pharmacy-that-is-more-like-a-dept-store, along with the regular mall stuff, like a food court, lotto booths, & some entertainment + quirky shops. Apparently the seniors feel safe there, they have walking groups + book clubs. It's also a great public transportation hub plus there's almost always cabs right there by the grocery store. It feels less like a mall than a video game village, like a community arranged in unusual physical space, but very much a community. I don't recall ever being in a place where so many people smiled & said hi as we passed each other, except maybe Manitou Springs in Colorado, & a couple villages in the Gatineau region of Canada.
Mixed use zoning is a tool we are not using enough when we think of developing our urban-scales. I'd love to live in an office tower.
Even if they converted them nobody would be able to afford it. I can only imagine the insane prices they're asking for the one converted you brought up in this video.
As someone who just moved into a renovated office building, I couldn't agree more. This is a wonderful space in a beautiful historic building.
Americana, and it’s newly acquired pride in the historical, must be remembered and allowed to be experienced,through reuse and preservation. Thx man, cool buildings I would enjoy seeing.
Extremely relevant. Thanks. This is one of your best. Houston just repurposed a huge empty main post office building to a multi-purpose center. It's a great example to see. San Francisco had a building boom ten years ago, but now is teetering on a "doom loop" per the SF Chronicle with large layoffs, empty office buildings and failing support services. Amazing how fast this turn around happen.
You may want to look into effective spaces for doing business between formal offices and ineffective working from home spaces. Repurposing good buildings into good good remote office hubs could be your follow-up video. Thanks
The problem with a lot of those high-rise office buildings is how low the ceilings are.... People with enough money to live downtown want really high ceilings.
Your videos are truly fantastic! I love the way you lay out your arguments and cite various sources. Genuinely one of my favorite urban planning channels now. Keep up the great work!
Oh gosh i do wish i could have lived in chicago without any access hassle and financial hassle as a college alumni. there are so many stuffs to check and see Chicago;s historic buildings
It would be interesting if the newly empty regions could be re-forested.
Wow, I wrote my architecture thesis on that! It's a very complicated topic but worth exploring in some cases.
Stewart, you are so spot on about the issues that REALLY MATTER, like this segment. I am going back to see if you have weighed in on the over abundance of parking? If not please do so asap. Also hope to see a segment on 15 minute cities. Thanks🙂🙂💯
Living in the tribune tower would be a dream
Agree. I worked in he Tribune Tower in the 1990s so it hold some great memories of my youth. In the lobby of the building is a plaque with the names of WW 2 people killed in action. My grand-uncle's name (grandmother's brother) is on that plaque. Would be like coming home.
Here’s an interesting idea… what if a college/university went into one of these empty office parks? What a place that would be! Just a thought. Seeing as some colleges are building 2 and 3 hundred million dollar buildings for a single purpose, why not have it all in one? Seems cheaper in the long run to me.
I just wonder what kind of place it could be. Professors and students living in the same place (if they want to, of course). It could become a new definition of “urban campus”.
Wow! The Severance Building has potential of what I;;m talking about! It's got everything, you could have a business downstairs, maybe salon, restaurant, etc, a store, movie theater. I LOVE THIS IDEA and I think it's time has come! I loved living in places that you could patronize the businesses already there. Oakland did a project like this 4th street lofts, I was invited to a meeting as a designer and somebody they would cater to. The whole process was really fascinating, I worked nearby so I watched the whole process from ground up, spectacular and they cleaned up the neighborhood in the process that was just a dump with all these beautiful buildings going to waste.
Just keep the prices to rent reasonable!
i'm glad you talked about deerfield and the general situation with suburban office parks. i don't live in the chicago area anymore, but i visited in may 2022 and i was shocked by the effects of the pandemic in the vast officeparklands of the north suburbs (like deerfield). nature was reclaiming them! it was actually quite peaceful.
Great video. I've been in the Baxter buildings multiple times, they are truly impressive. I have doubts that campus will survive the wrecking ball in its current form, though. Massive, aging corporate campuses like that are unlikely to find a viable tenant. The bigger problem to me are office towers. Even converting a tower with a relatively narrow floorplate will require a total gut as reworked plumbing, electric and HVAC is needed. The larger floor plate buildings are simply unviable for dense residential. Companies seem to be striving to force people back into offices, but I think employees have tasted remote working and don't want to go back. Even hybrid working means that open plan offices (as are common these days) are 30%-50% too large. It's going to be fascinating to see how this pans out.
Thanks for mentioning the financial aspect. So many preservationists seem to think we can preserve everything regardless of how much it costs. But a lot of places just aren't worth the expense to repair or renovate.
I live fairly close to the Bell Works building and have been to it. The transformation is spectacular. I never thought an office building could become a destination. So much was going on there even on a weekend. Thanks Stewart for this episode.
This video highlighted some good points about the challenges of converting office buildings to residential then naively pivoted into a commentary about how these office buildings belong to all of us and should be preserved, without any consideration for the capital, expertise, and market demand required to successfully redevelop into thriving mixed use
Yea, i thought the video became a bit too hopeful at the end with the mixed zoning. Sure it sounds great but in this capitalist hellhole it's a lot more viable to see these turned into self storage facilities than cultural centers
Living in the Bay Area, we're surrounded by large swaths of office parks that could be better utilized, include much needed housing, and other community needs. San Francisco is already in the process of studying which office buildings in the Financial District could be ideal candidates for conversion. I used to work in the Hartford Building, a notable skyscraper built in the sixties, and always thought they could convert some floors to housing as many floors were underutilized.
Amazing! The pace of your videos really helps someone diving into the built environment to digest these complex concepts. Thank you!
I like how the channel highlights things we take for granted. The Midwest has many cities with hidden gems. The industrial age buildings are ❤
Sweet baby Krishna no more luxury housing. The affluent already have multiple residences. Thanks for another informative video!
this was very interesting!
I work in the opposite case: a Gründerzeit-Building (Founding Times, around 1900, is when a lot of living quarters here were built) in Vienna, turned into an office building for an engineering company.
While I don't think the video's title matches its contents - the focus being more on making the case for somehow preserving architecturally (and culturally) significant structures - it's nevertheless an important topic that needs more attention. Thank you :)
An apartment building in particular (compared to suburbs) would be especially handy to have remote working executive suites adjacent to living.
To convert modern office buildings, we need some change to occupancy laws. In a tall skyscraper we don't really want windows that open anyway! Large suites would not need window in every room. You could have mixed-use on a single floor, too, with residential around the perimeter and an open market concept in the middle.
Certainly you already know most office buildings are usually not viable residences because of zoning, and lack of expensive plumbing infrastructure. Developers are not interested in these flips most areas, not everywhere is like Chicago.
Really great video! Stewart, have you considered doing a feature on civic spaces like city halls or Masonic lodges?
One of the buildings that comes to mind is the COMSAT building in Clarksburg MD. You can see it from I-270, and has been sitting empty for years. Given all the land, I always wondered if it could be a center for a mixed use development.
Mixed-use buildings are the best way. It works this way in cities at many places of the world. I used to live at the place, where I can just take the lift or stairs to go to work and the bub and grocery shop was just on the other side of the street.
Nice Stewart - I like you sharing your thoughts and position on these topics. It's a bit more inspiring and thought provoking than purely reporting information.
The Johnson tower would make the great site of a phenomenal modern art or architecture museum. Maybe even a museum dedicated to FLW! The Baxter space with suspended roof might make a very cool transportation or automotive museum.
Stuff like this makes me wish I could be a real estate developer or the government could build housing. This is something if I had the money I would love to work on repurposing these buildings when possible or building walkable mixed use districts out of office parks. For now we can hope that maybe we can have the government do some of these conversions to provide much needed housing for those of lesser means.
I used to work at the updated 600W building next to what used to be cabrini green. It had business, a bit of retail on the ground floor, parking, and residential units. One of my coworkers at the time had an extremely demanding position that required HEFTY hours, even by American standards. However, because he lived in one of the condos in the same building, he was still able to balance his work and home lives and was able to start a family and have kids. In fact, in a lot of ways he viewed the office as an extension of his own home since he was able to use the office for productivity while still easily having access to his family at lunch or between meetings. It was a fascinating setup and I'd love to see more young people have access to those kinds of opportunities!
It was interesting to see these different buildings in historical context, but I don't think you really gave much coverage to what the title suggested. I wanted to know more about the possibility of conversion, what that looks like, a breakdown of the challenges. Instead, this was mostly an overview of some notable suburban office buildings from the 1960s and 1970s. It would have also been interesting to have more coverage of the changes in the office market, the ecosystems of downtowns (which are, admittedly, a different beast from a suburban office park), and the implications of remote work. A lot of people praising it, in my opinion, don't really think too deeply about how it might work, how it actually works, or the fact that a hell of a lot of people don't work office jobs but frequently in jobs that are ancillary to office buildings. Going back to the suggested topic in the title of the video, an overview of how various types of buildings have been converted over time (a strength of pre-WWII architecture in general) and what that can teach about the approach to design could have been very informative. As it stands, I don't think you really answered the question you posed in the title.
This is now officially the closest we’ve gotten to the fabled Stewart Hicks/Phil Edwards collab. I will believe you two aren’t the same person when I see you in a room together
It's really trippy for me, because they always show up right next to each other in my video recommendations
Phil is kind of a hack. His videos lack much substance, other than, often times just "hey isn't this strange".
GAY
Hey, I was just noticing how similar they look. And now that you mention it, you never see them in the same room at the same time, do you?
What if they simply share one moustache?
It's ridiculous that there aren't more mixed commercial and residential sites in America.
I wonder how many people wouldn't mind going into the office if they didn't have to drive 🤔
I’ve been waiting for this video for three years. Thanks for making it.
The old lab and office buildings reminded me of the COMSAT building outside of DC right next to 270. I see it every time I drive into the city and it’s a really cool building (designed by Cesar Pelli in 1969 - very futuristic) but it’s been empty for as long as I can remember. People keep coming up with plans to use it but it never seems to work out.
The idea of having a children's creche wasnt quite favoured by children's parents
I'd bet the kudzu has plans to use it too.
And dead suburban shopping malls could be repurposed to indoor recreaction. Bike parks w proshop, soccer, tennis, climbing gym, performance spaces, community meeting spaces etc
I thought about the beautiful renovation done to the old Cook County hospital as it was converted into the Hyatt. My wife worked across the street at Rush and I was convinced I would see someone moving in the busted out windows. Used to smell strong of mildew on a warm day.
Might make a good video.
if the cities added trams to connect to city centers, and convert them to housing and mixed use then a lot of these building would see a second life
I remember being disappointed after watching that Vox video you refer to, and I absolutely love this video you made here. Good work, as always.
Always a smart., well done presentation. Thank you, Stewart.
Calgary recently created fund for conversion of several Downton buildings, 1-3 floor mixed use and residential at the top, underground parking and all the things. It actually makes far more sense then creating Computer cells in the center that people have to drive to every single day.
3:46 Glad you raise this point because much of what makes this problem what it is, is the speculative nature of real estate, and the high premium folks are paying to use office spaces, as well as occupy housing.
Should places remain vacant for too long, they will change owning hands at a financial loss, and prices will adjust. People will learn that places aren’t “worth” what they’re suggested to be. At least financially. And the holding hostage of space at such a high premium undercuts the social value generated by the architecture serving its purpose to bring people together in meaningful ways.
Considering it a necessary market correction is cold, but treating property like solely a machine for generating efficient business outcomes has always been this. When people fundamentally don’t agree with this premise, values adjust, and spaces change, steadily gravitating towards prosperous places or defunct ones.
Also, I will say, to your next point; the transcendence of architecture beyond purely real estate value toward something of cultural identity is still the outlier and not the norm. Most buildings/sites don’t hold such a place in people’s hearts to venerate and redevelop this way. It’s great to bring attention to the buildings/sites that are formally unique or architecturally ornate, but most places are products of machinations much less extravagant, though their human interactions generated are anything but banal.
It’s almost as if the hard work is getting people to care about what buildings do, rather than how they look or what they represent.
Your dialogue at the end, really reeled me in. Thanks.
There's one remaining structure in the abandoned Diamond Match Factory complex in Chico California. It's a long brick factory hall with lots of windows and two big doors, one on either end, for shipping in the locally milled lumber, and shipping out the final products. There was some interest in preserving and reusing the factory complex and its remnants, but it still sits and rots. Hopefully someday it gets that attention.
Possible future uses: light industry as international trading patterns change. Indoor agriculture such as hydroponics. Malls have the parking, loading and water and electrical infrastructure available.
Just saw a Canadians architect YT channel competition between architects and AI that actually tested AI generated design and presentation. In her case AI actually beat them. Things are gettting scary. In the future the practice of architecture could be very different than what it has been.
If you watched the entire video, you’ll notice at this point in time AI is capable of only producing pretty pictures, there’s more to architecture than just pretty pictures, unlike general art there is a lot of technical and context based thinking involved, there’s no doubt AI will probably get over the hurdle in the near future, but human input and collaboration will still be needed, in architecture, II personally believe there is no one true solution for a given problem.
@@may091985 yeah it’s kinda scary as most professions will just be replaced by a person good at using AI
@@ltreylukwesa not for a while, but Ai will assist and speed up common tasks in an architect office so reduce office sizes.
@@may091985 it was capable of creating spaces and form, not perfectly but its on its way.
@@notlessgrossman163 agree, it’ll help us architects cover menial and data based task much faster.
Most beautiful city ever! I highly encourage every traveler from around the world to visit for a week and immerse oneself in its splendor. In part it’s a great example of the beauty in the idea of the great American “melting pot”, something for everyone! Great videos!
Converting office buildings (when viable and safe) might be one of the answers to the housing crisis that plagues the big cities right now. There will be more housing units available, bringing the prices down. The people who still need to be in physical work locations won’t need to be displaced and have to commute all the way from the suburbs. I know it’s not the only problem and AirBnB should be limited on those too. But it’s a good piece of the puzzle.
This was incredibly interesting. Thank you.
This sounds like an awful idea when you consider that one co-worker you hate will be your neighbor and your boss will have super creepy supervision over you.
Great video again. Currently working on a 1906 administrative building of the former German Reichsbahn at Leipzig, Germany. You got me thinking about a residential makeover.
This is a PERFECT solution to the urban housing crisis we're seeing.
Some of the examples are essentially gated communities when seen from the outside: enclosed shells with mixed use development within. How do these connect to the surrounding community? The 15minute European walkable city model hasn't been enclosed since the middle ages.
Excellent perspective. As an Industry insider I commend you on bringing this to light. "Architecture without people are just RUINS!" WE NEED NEW LEADERSHIP TO MAKE CHANGES TO ACCOMMODATE HUMANITY! WE NEED GOOD PEOPLE TO BREAK THE BARRIERS FOR SUSTAINABILITY! LUV TO ALL! THERE ARE NO SPACE ISSUES... ONLY GREED ISSUES...
I got to work in the Tribune tower. Even had an office facing the lake. It’s wild to see those million dollar condos now.
Awesome presentation!
Excellent conversation, and something South Africa is starting to embrace, especially in the context of inadequate or non existent public transport infrastructure. Factoring those costs into the refurbishment equation makes more building economically viable for a transition to residential or mixed use.
This has been experianced in the Uk for decades and decades just not as extreme with so much building stock. In Harlow, they had pigeon like coup offices turned residential for 'social housing' breaking many a laws and all, thats a slightly notorious case but its scarily unregulated.
Love your channel. Will watch this a little later.
Conversions are the way to go. Some companies could offer both work and residential space to their key employees.
For a long standing example The "Superman" building in Providence was stuck in a zoning rut since around 2013. It's the most iconic looking building in the city's skyline, and only recently (around spring of 2022) started its conversion from vacant offices to residential apartments.
Affordability is always a problem, but it's designated to have 20% of its units marked as "affordable."
Another fabulous insight.
Excellent video, but the title doesn't reflect the message. The cost of new offices on green-field development is high. BUT, the cost of acquiring and converting existing buildings, even for like-for-like commercial refurbishment is spectacular: often into the 8-figures. The notion that an office be trivially converted into a residence ignores the large amounts of engineering that is put into even the simplest structures. Simply getting to the building permit usually is a year or two of work.
Bell Works looks phenomenal as modern architecture. As a New Yorker, I’ve always loved driving by the TWA terminal…and Grand Central is my magic wonderland.
Coming from the design side…even a Zoom backdrop should be designed to create a unique space that represents you.
I feel as though the Tribune Tower was one of the few viable conversions because it's an icon of Chicago. People would be willing to pay to live in a piece of history. But they won't pay to live in a generic office building with an uninspiring view.
I think any building in a high enough cost of living area would be a viable conversion. Because the rent in those areas is too high, and people would be willing to settle for a building that isn’t run-down and where the rent is affordable.
the prices will be in accord
Actually it’s more that it was old enough to have a small floor plate that could easily be converted into residential floor plans. Even the Sears Tower, which would likely have some of the most amazing views in the city, can’t magically turn itself into a residential building because there’s simply too much of it that’s too far from any windows or natural light to ever be useful or even legal as residential units.
There is some interesting architecture in this video
Codes are all different. Just read a reddit thread saying this, and consensus among people with a clue was it's too expensive to convert. Cheaper to bulldoze and rebuild as residential.
Great video!
Incredible presentation , Mr.Hicks!!!
With Chicago's arch. whether it's good or bad , never is it boredom.
But , I always kinda flummox with LOS ANGELES city planning with having very few skyscrapers and small buildings while being the second largest and most populous city. Will be awesome if you add west coast to ur bucket list.
I don't want to be on the 25th floor during an earthquake, I think many might feel this way..
@@rosevan7845 I am one of that many and felt the same a lot.
But if that's the only reason then la would look a lot like Sacramento or sf. with less than 1000 ft. scrapers. Actually, none of the structural engineers had considered those issues in 70s-80s LOS ANGELES SKYLINE DEVELOPMENT aside from their pockets get filled.
It has its own history 🌹.
Lol the "Dead Mall" Footage at 3:21 mark is actually a huge and always very very busy shopping mall from EUROPE, just before opening hours. It is called Westfield Chodov and it is in Prague, Czech Republic.
I mean, sure? If the numbers start to work out, many of these places will certainly switch over. No different than all of the empty factories in the 90s that became loft apartments and condos, or when old Victorian mansions were carved-up into apartments in the 40-60s.
When the Johnson Wax Building was completed in the late 1930s, employees had a much different relationship with upper management, which is why the only elevator in the office was used solely by the managers. They had their desks on the upper level so that they could keep a watchful eye on the staff below in the open floorplan. It's doubtful that anyone working for S.C. Johnson today would welcome their boss peering over their shoulders. One additional bit of trivia: The iconic desks that Wright designed for the space are still manufactured by the Grand Rapids, MI contract furniture company, Steelcase.