While some office spaces can be difficult to convert into housing, repurposing these buildings can be a sustainable way to bring more housing into city centres.
When cities are facing a 99 acres database housing shortage, abandoned office buildings can be an opportunity to build new apartment buildings. This could bring housing back to the city centre, where there is a need to house a growing population of residents.
Office buildings have become increasingly abandoned over time. For example, in Paris, about 33% of office spaces have been empty for more than 4 years. In addition, many other office spaces were abandoned during the pandemic when employees worked from home. Predictions claim that business districts will not be fully operational again even after the pandemic and could therefore allow for the reuse of buildings as housing.
However, this transition poses a number of challenges. Architects need the right type of office building to create an acceptable housing unit. For example, older office buildings are better than newer ones. They usually have a lower floor height and are therefore more suitable for conversion into housing. In addition, newer office buildings often have larger floor plates, which means there is less natural light. This would not be ideal for housing.
However, once the right office buildings are selected, the advantages are many. Firstly, reusing rather than demolishing is often more sustainable and cost effective. Office buildings already have a carbon footprint and energy usage. By reusing the building rather than building a new one, environmental destruction can be decreased. Similarly, building retrofitting can extend the life of the underused building. It helps the urban environment evolve by providing more homes and addresses the housing crisis.
The largest US cities, such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, already implemented this conversion of offices into housing in the 1980s and 1990s, during the pre- and post-war period. Today, it is more difficult with advanced office spaces, despite the high number of current vacancies. In Europe, many cities are also encouraging this reuse of offices. For example, in April 2021, London announced its goal of building at least 1,500 residential units by 2030 by converting office buildings into housing.
FUNIBER offers scholarships to pursue a wide variety of programs in the area of architecture and design in order to learn more about the requirements for building housing versus office spaces. Some of these courses are the Master in Architecture and Urban Planning Projects and the Master in Innovation and Product Project Development .
