Since COVID and the advent of remote work, many cities continue to have unused office space; At the same time, many of these same cities also have a lack of housing available. Ideally, office...
Since COVID and the advent of remote work, many cities continue to have unused office space; At the same time, many of these same cities also have a lack of housing available. Ideally, office space owners would convert the office buildings into residential units but this process is more complicated and difficult than it may seem. The linked article lays out the various challenges and provides diagrams to illustrate the process of actually converting one of these office buildings.
The answer for this one in particular is simple: Change the rules. The bedroom-must-have-X-windows rule is somewhat arbitrary and outdated to begin with. The first thing I do in a bedroom is...
solve for local rules that say what counts as a bedroom
The answer for this one in particular is simple: Change the rules.
The bedroom-must-have-X-windows rule is somewhat arbitrary and outdated to begin with. The first thing I do in a bedroom is figure out how to black out as much light as possible from the outside to insure that its actually dark when I sleep. I would much rather my kitchen and living room have full daylight and my bedroom be a basement cave.
I propose a square-footage based standard. It would be much more useful overall. A bedroom must fit a mattress of a given size, and that mattress must not occupy more than X% of the floorspace when in use. IE instead of primary/secondary bedrooms, they could be classed as Twin, Full, Queen, King.
When I turned 13, I convinced my parents to renovate this “apartment” space in the basement of our house in North Carolina into a space for me to live in. The space had a living room with a fire...
The first thing I do in a bedroom is figure out how to black out as much light as possible
When I turned 13, I convinced my parents to renovate this “apartment” space in the basement of our house in North Carolina into a space for me to live in. The space had a living room with a fire place, an exterior door leading outside (that was mostly glass), an interior door leading upstairs, a floor-to-ceiling window right next to the exterior door, a kitchen with fridge and microwave, a full bathroom, and a bedroom.
All of that was already in this “apartment” space in the basement of the house, but we pretty much tore everything out and replaced it since the house was old and a lot of that space was broken or not well cared for. After a few months of work, I had the coolest “bedroom” of any of my friends.
The only bad part about my space was the actual bedroom, because it didn’t have any windows. Worse, even if I left my bedroom door open at night (which I hated doing) the light from the windows in the living room wouldn’t reach into the bedroom.
Looking back, I’m pretty sure sleeping in this space, with almost zero natural light in the morning, is why I was late more often than not my junior and senior years of high school.
After graduating though, I started working night shift at a hotel, and suddenly having zero natural light where I slept was great.
Fast forward to moving to Texas, I bought these giant black curtains for my apartment bedroom that let in barely any light, and that also worked great for night shift schedule.
I eventually stopped working night shift though (and at hotels in general) and suddenly those curtains were awful. They destroyed my ability to wake up at a decent time. I’m really picky about people being able to see into my room at night, so I stuck with them for a while, until I bought some sheer curtains and a dual-rail curtain rod. With that, I could have my curtains open and let light in during the day, then when it got dark and I didn’t want people looking in, I could pull the black curtains closed. When I went to sleep and all the lights are off, black curtains got pulled open so there was natural light when I woke up in the morning.
Of course, now I live in an apartment off campus, seven stories up, with a giant window in my bedroom. All that curtain business is behind me. Unless I stuck my cheeks up against the glass, no one is going to see my ass up here. It’s bliss.
So, I’m a pretty big fan of the idea that bedrooms must have windows. I have no doubt, if they could get away with it, the corporate slumlords that dominate off campus housing around universities would stick residents in prison cells if they could get away with it.
(In fact, I think I remember reading here on Tildes an article about an ultra-dense student housing project? I think it was a year or two ago, and the controversy with the building was that there would be a lot of bedrooms with no windows, and just artificially lit fakes instead?)
I have no doubts, but almost everywhere I've lived has so much light pollution that even at 3 AM its roughly equivalent to 7 AM (as of today, EDT). The USA wastes so much money on nightime lights....
I have no doubts, but almost everywhere I've lived has so much light pollution that even at 3 AM its roughly equivalent to 7 AM (as of today, EDT). The USA wastes so much money on nightime lights.
I'll handily take a few sufficiently high-quality artificials insead. I envision some well-designed mirror ducts/fiber optics could be 95% as good.
That adds an interesting extra layer, come to think of it. There’s a big difference between a student context where bedroom might actually mean “primary living, eating, sleeping, and study space”,...
In fact, I think I remember reading here on Tildes an article about an ultra-dense student housing project? I think it was a year or two ago, and the controversy with the building was that there would be a lot of bedrooms with no windows, and just artificially lit fakes instead?
That adds an interesting extra layer, come to think of it. There’s a big difference between a student context where bedroom might actually mean “primary living, eating, sleeping, and study space”, a high-rise apartment that could feasibly be 75% open plan light-flooded living room & kitchen with an interior bedroom just for sleeping, and a three bedroom unit in a five storey mid-rise building where maybe the small guest bedroom is the only one without windows and gets used more for storage than actual human occupation 80% of the time anyway.
There probably are such exceptions, I just know that when my family was remodeling our basement to include a bedroom, there had to be an egress window made. I suspect that for larger buildings,...
There probably are such exceptions, I just know that when my family was remodeling our basement to include a bedroom, there had to be an egress window made. I suspect that for larger buildings, the builders just have to have some form of proven fire escape.
In a highrise, I think having a window for every bedroom just isn't needed. There is so much light outside at night that you need fully block out blinds to get it appropriately dark at night. So...
In a highrise, I think having a window for every bedroom just isn't needed. There is so much light outside at night that you need fully block out blinds to get it appropriately dark at night. So in the bedroom I either need the blinds closed for darkness, or I need them closed for privacy.
I think natural light is important for living and working spaces though. Just not for bedrooms
Tbh I'm not sure it really makes any sense at all to convert office highrises to residential. The buildings are more different than they are alike. Offices don't look like they are going anywhere...
Tbh I'm not sure it really makes any sense at all to convert office highrises to residential. The buildings are more different than they are alike. Offices don't look like they are going anywhere either, lots of businesses are drifting back to offices and anecdotally, myself and most of my coworkers are opting to go back to the office more often to avoid the isolation of remote work.
It would be cheaper and more efficient to just renovate these office buildings in to nicer office buildings or converting them in to coworking spaces.
Since COVID and the advent of remote work, many cities continue to have unused office space; At the same time, many of these same cities also have a lack of housing available. Ideally, office space owners would convert the office buildings into residential units but this process is more complicated and difficult than it may seem. The linked article lays out the various challenges and provides diagrams to illustrate the process of actually converting one of these office buildings.
Alternate archive link: https://archive.ph/uFHMr#selection-299.0-299.50
The answer for this one in particular is simple: Change the rules.
The bedroom-must-have-X-windows rule is somewhat arbitrary and outdated to begin with. The first thing I do in a bedroom is figure out how to black out as much light as possible from the outside to insure that its actually dark when I sleep. I would much rather my kitchen and living room have full daylight and my bedroom be a basement cave.
I propose a square-footage based standard. It would be much more useful overall. A bedroom must fit a mattress of a given size, and that mattress must not occupy more than X% of the floorspace when in use. IE instead of primary/secondary bedrooms, they could be classed as Twin, Full, Queen, King.
When I turned 13, I convinced my parents to renovate this “apartment” space in the basement of our house in North Carolina into a space for me to live in. The space had a living room with a fire place, an exterior door leading outside (that was mostly glass), an interior door leading upstairs, a floor-to-ceiling window right next to the exterior door, a kitchen with fridge and microwave, a full bathroom, and a bedroom.
All of that was already in this “apartment” space in the basement of the house, but we pretty much tore everything out and replaced it since the house was old and a lot of that space was broken or not well cared for. After a few months of work, I had the coolest “bedroom” of any of my friends.
The only bad part about my space was the actual bedroom, because it didn’t have any windows. Worse, even if I left my bedroom door open at night (which I hated doing) the light from the windows in the living room wouldn’t reach into the bedroom.
Looking back, I’m pretty sure sleeping in this space, with almost zero natural light in the morning, is why I was late more often than not my junior and senior years of high school.
After graduating though, I started working night shift at a hotel, and suddenly having zero natural light where I slept was great.
Fast forward to moving to Texas, I bought these giant black curtains for my apartment bedroom that let in barely any light, and that also worked great for night shift schedule.
I eventually stopped working night shift though (and at hotels in general) and suddenly those curtains were awful. They destroyed my ability to wake up at a decent time. I’m really picky about people being able to see into my room at night, so I stuck with them for a while, until I bought some sheer curtains and a dual-rail curtain rod. With that, I could have my curtains open and let light in during the day, then when it got dark and I didn’t want people looking in, I could pull the black curtains closed. When I went to sleep and all the lights are off, black curtains got pulled open so there was natural light when I woke up in the morning.
Of course, now I live in an apartment off campus, seven stories up, with a giant window in my bedroom. All that curtain business is behind me. Unless I stuck my cheeks up against the glass, no one is going to see my ass up here. It’s bliss.
So, I’m a pretty big fan of the idea that bedrooms must have windows. I have no doubt, if they could get away with it, the corporate slumlords that dominate off campus housing around universities would stick residents in prison cells if they could get away with it.
(In fact, I think I remember reading here on Tildes an article about an ultra-dense student housing project? I think it was a year or two ago, and the controversy with the building was that there would be a lot of bedrooms with no windows, and just artificially lit fakes instead?)
I have no doubts, but almost everywhere I've lived has so much light pollution that even at 3 AM its roughly equivalent to 7 AM (as of today, EDT). The USA wastes so much money on nightime lights.
I'll handily take a few sufficiently high-quality artificials insead. I envision some well-designed mirror ducts/fiber optics could be 95% as good.
That adds an interesting extra layer, come to think of it. There’s a big difference between a student context where bedroom might actually mean “primary living, eating, sleeping, and study space”, a high-rise apartment that could feasibly be 75% open plan light-flooded living room & kitchen with an interior bedroom just for sleeping, and a three bedroom unit in a five storey mid-rise building where maybe the small guest bedroom is the only one without windows and gets used more for storage than actual human occupation 80% of the time anyway.
IIRC, the requirements for windows is part of the fire code, not anything to do with natural light.
In which case a modern skyscraper is gonna need an exception to the definition anyhow.
That does make sense though.
There probably are such exceptions, I just know that when my family was remodeling our basement to include a bedroom, there had to be an egress window made. I suspect that for larger buildings, the builders just have to have some form of proven fire escape.
In a highrise, I think having a window for every bedroom just isn't needed. There is so much light outside at night that you need fully block out blinds to get it appropriately dark at night. So in the bedroom I either need the blinds closed for darkness, or I need them closed for privacy.
I think natural light is important for living and working spaces though. Just not for bedrooms
Tbh I'm not sure it really makes any sense at all to convert office highrises to residential. The buildings are more different than they are alike. Offices don't look like they are going anywhere either, lots of businesses are drifting back to offices and anecdotally, myself and most of my coworkers are opting to go back to the office more often to avoid the isolation of remote work.
It would be cheaper and more efficient to just renovate these office buildings in to nicer office buildings or converting them in to coworking spaces.