This article is an independent version of the article featured in this issue of DOK Architecture Journal. You can access the entire journal via this link:
We started building out of need. Then to show off.
Then we learned to do more with less. Somewhere along the way, we forgot what’s necessary and what’s not.
First we built huts to stay dry. Then pyramids to touch the gods. Then skyscrapers to scrape the clouds.
Architecture may be mankind’s longest obsession.
A hobby that escaped the workshop and became civilization itself.
What began as survival has become identity, pride, ego, ambition.
We build to impress, to dominate, to outdo.
To prove we can, not always because we should.
We created big cities to house people.
Then the cities made us dependent on cars.
Then we filled houses with garages and streets with parking lots.
We sacrificed precious spaces to store the machines that were supposed to save us time.
We became caretakers of our possessions, stressing over cars, then houses. Spaces meant for us became spaces for everything else.
We made them noble. We showcased them. We built tourism around it.
And yet we fell behind on housing. Rents rose. Values soared.
Cue the Office-to-Residential (O2R) movement.
What started as an ad hoc response to urban vacancy is quickly evolving into a philosophy of its own.
The story is a familiar one across the globe. Business districts filled with towers that were once symbols of progress. But as work patterns changed, many of the floors have remained empty.
Meanwhile, in those same cities, demand for housing continued to rise.
Rents increased, families were crammed into smaller properties, and the idea of “a city for everyone” faded.
The Cornerstone is the first completed building in Calgary’s residential conversion program.
O2R asks a simple question: If yesterday’s offices no longer serve their purpose, why not transform them into homes for the present day? This is not an architectural challenge that we have made up. It is born from necessity and must be carefully considered, as floor plans, plumbing and light wells often require radical rethinking.
It is also a social and environmental challenge by design.
By reusing existing structures, cities can save thousands of tonnes of carbon that would be released by demolition.
By placing people where jobs, transport links and services already exist, we can breathe new life into neighbourhoods that risk becoming deserted.
In New York, office towers dating back to the 1960s are being converted into residential complexes in an attempt to address a shortage of hundreds of thousands of housing units. In London, office blocks built during economic booms are now being converted to house students and young professionals.
In Tokyo, where land is scarce, O2R is breathing new life into districts
that used to empty after dark. The principle is the same everywhere.
Adapt instead of abandon.
O2R’s promise is to bring vacancy and affordability, while transforming the meaning of architecture itself.
Office towers no longer have to die with their leases.
Instead, it can evolve and become part of the living city again.
Pearl House is one example.
Gensler turned a mostly vacant office tower into
a residential address
adding floors,
redesigning interiors
and filling the building with life.
The view of Pearl House’s lobby.
Some 588 apartments (singles and doubles) plus the things people actually use.
Gym,
coworking,
lounges,
even a bowling alley.
The ground floor woke up and the block felt inhabited again.
The graphs prepared by Gensler show the gap between Housing Stock and Income Levels.
Repurposing the structure avoided about 20,000 tons of carbon
and solved two problems at once.
Too many empty offices, not enough housing. Operations improved.
And yet, renovated units start at about $3,700 a month.
There’s a gap between social need and what buildings actually provide.
Even when we create “new” space, access slips away.
At its core, architecture is still a playful, stubborn act of arranging space.
Sometimes that means changing the purpose of a building.
Sometimes it’s just moving a wall to open up a new era of life.
You gain something, you give something up.
Section of a Single Unit.
This unsettles architects because it contradicts our old certainties.
But maybe that’s the point and the beauty.
Architecture is a living art, not a set answer.
Perhaps we never stopped “playing house“. Maybe we just never learned when to stop.
The work now is to play with responsibility.
Is to leave a city that’s kinder than we found it with
better homes,
better streets,
better choices,
and a better place to grow up.