> "Such floor plans and building shapes translate well to apartments (although, of course, a common bathroom for 20 units won’t do)."<p>Every floor would have to be completely ripped out and replumbed, you'd also want more insulation to avoid hearing the neighbors, ventilation systems for the kitchens and bathrooms, and probably about a dozen other issues necessitating a complete reconstruction program. It might be somewhat cheaper than building new housing from the ground up, but it's not going to be a quick easy operation.
> Apartments, obviously, need operable windows to vent cooking fumes and brighten living space.<p>I for one would be perfectly happy to rent an apartment without any windows if it meant getting a place located in the heart of a major city.<p>> although, of course, a common bathroom for 20 units won’t do<p>Again, I’d be fine with dorm-style shared bathrooms as a trade-off for having an apartment with an excellent location.<p>I suppose the overall sentiment I’m feeling is that I’d enjoy living in a dorm-style building for young professionals. Go ahead and throw in some large common rooms while you’re at it. I get that this isn’t for everyone, but I think there’d be enough demand from individuals in a similar demographic (i.e. professionals in their early 20’s) to make this viable, especially somewhere like SF.
> Apartments, obviously, need operable windows to vent cooking fumes and brighten living space<p>I assume this must be some building code law, otherwise there's a lot of room to get creative with active ventilation. If assumptions were challenged, there's a lot more possibilities for how to convert these spaces. A lot of people would be willing to rent a windowless space with a shared bathroom (e.g. <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90740511/heres-what-its-like-living-in-a-windowless-dorm-built-by-a-billionaire" rel="nofollow">https://www.fastcompany.com/90740511/heres-what-its-like-liv...</a>) if it meant they could live in a great location. Example: What if windowless apartments had a built-in 12" video wall like the one this YouTuber inexpensively DIY'ed: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv88wM6AN6Y">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv88wM6AN6Y</a>
The solution in the article of creating an inner "courtyard" seems to me to be absolutely horrendous, from a livability perspective.<p>Imagine your only windows being into a tunnel 300 feet from the open sky. That's not actually a source of natural light. Sure, it's a possible source of ventilation. But really, this sounds like dystopian housing as opposed to anything someone would actually want to live in.<p>That being said, it does have a convincing argument for converting older, smaller footprint buildings.
A couple points from the article:<p>- Older buildings are both less attractive as commercial space and easier/better to convert to apartments because their footprint makes it easier to get natural light and windows typically open. (That "courtyard" they added to one of the newer buildings being converted seems like it will be a pretty partial solution especially for apartments on lower floors.)<p>- These conversions are expensive so the resulting apartments are on the luxury end so you're not going to have shared bathrooms or kitchens.
widely seen as the most ugly (and corrupt, from the builders/landlords practices) block of flats in london,uk, is Centre Point (corner of new oxford st and charing cross rd) - originally intended as offices. i cannot imagine why people that can afford to live there would want to live there.
This article is kind of silly, as it seems to be based on the idea that nothing would be done to change the layout of these buildings before opening them up as living facilities. There's no reason each floor couldn't be gutted and refitted as lifing units; they currently reconfigure office layouts at will to suit the tenants.<p>It's kind of reminiscent of some of the arguments about grow houses made when cannabis was being legalized. The opponents couldn't seem to wrap their heads around the idea that when warehouses became available legally there was no more need for grow houses. If office buildings are being used as housing there's zero reason to keep them configured as office buildings.
great, but they are forgetting one more detail. Even existing apartment buildings need to be fixed for remote renters. i.e. FLOW <a href="https://a16z.com/2022/08/15/investing-in-flow/" rel="nofollow">https://a16z.com/2022/08/15/investing-in-flow/</a>