Is there a written version of this podcast, all this article says is there are structural and governmental problems, ending with if we want more have the government doing it, which is what they did.
VibeSurgeon@piefed.social 22 hours ago
Office buildings are generally unfit for apartment conversions since they have so much interior space that isn’t really appropriate to use as homes - there’s usually a requirement that you get an actual window in your apartment, something I don’t think is particularly unreasonable.
A great podcast episode on the topic: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/551-office-space/
Postimo@lemmy.zip 21 hours ago
VibeSurgeon@piefed.social 21 hours ago
There’s a transcript here: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/551-office-space/transcript/
But really, I recommend you give it a listen.
My conclusion from it was that, sad as it may perhaps be, it’s probably better if we replace these buildings with actual purpose-built apartment buildings. The juice is not really worth the squeeze for these retrofits, in most cases.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Around here the commercial buildings are insulated very differently from the residential. I don’t know the specifics, just that commercial has worse insulation (per my insulation guy)
gigaqps@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
They’re not converting the building. They’re tearing it down and building new ones.
VibeSurgeon@piefed.social 19 hours ago
That’s a different story then. I could only really go off of the fact that the image said “converting”.
Brkdncr@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
Lies.
Office space is easily remodeled. Most high rise commercial buildings have windows. they are designed for it to be changed every few years.
Older buildings regularly get turned into housing and sell well exactly for their unique characteristics.
I lived in a converted building that had an enormous industrial crane structure inside of it. They had retrofitted a pool, hot tub, and basketball court on the roofs. It even had two stall parking.
VibeSurgeon@piefed.social 20 hours ago
They have windows, yeah. They also tend to have way more internal space than your average residential high-rise.
I’m all for reclaiming unused office space, but sometimes it’s just better to build a new building on the lot, that is fit for purpose.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
More internal space means more or larger units. Or am I misunderstanding?
Usually it’s that the insulation sucks