This concept / discussion is going mainstream in the designer community. There was a prominent article in a recent magazine the serves the commercial steel association discussing the ins and outs of conversion. There are technical barriers, but they're trivial compared to the political and capitalist ones.

This started happening in Canary Wharf a long time before covid. Businesses started consolidating offices by forcing hot desking and work from home days. The outer office buildings started converting to super expensive homes.

Its funny because as someone renting a tiny room in a shared flat with no space for a desk, and tbh just thinking its normal to be in the office 5 days, I was livid that I lost my desk, so hated it. Now, I live much further out and just took a job that is 2 days mandatory in the office which I had to really think if it was worth it compared to my 1 day optional!

I looked at the prices back then out of interest and they were insane, and rental prices were ridiculous too as a result. I have a feeling that they were all bought by “investors" (ie money laundering, especially by Russians) but no proof or anything to back it up, although seen lots of news article suggesting that is the case.

Part of the problem is that their mortgage usually sets a minimum price per square foot. That means that if the market crashes, the landlords can’t lease for market price without getting their investors to approve. That’s part of the reason why there’s so much empty space, because prices haven’t come down much.

What are you talking about? Cool it with the imbibing of scum-quality news.

Your mom's seriously dangerous

Do you live in LA? Of all the issues this area has, downtown where this tower is located isn’t the biggest concern…