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Comment by fshbbdssbbgdd | Hacker News Reader

Can they be converted into huge units with an open floor plan and bathroom/kitchen near the center?

If someone can figure out how to make it look cool, office conversions could be the 2020s version of the warehouse loft.

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Half jokingly - I wonder if that is what sorta is in the works with Adam Neumann's latest project - Flow. Definitely seems similar to how the original WeWork offices were started - transforming unused loft safe into high end but communal office space. It'd probably be more like an extended stay hotel (just rooms on most floors) with a common restaurant.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidjeans/2022/08/17/adam-neum...

"When Adam Neumann revealed his new venture to WeWork-ify the residential real estate sector Monday, backed by a $350 million≥."

Sublime. All of the people who hated working in an open office are screaming at the idea of living in one.

The corporate commune!

I am very over getting together in people’s open plan kitchen + living/family/dining room homes and being unable to have a conversation because 10 people’s voices are bouncing around one room with 10ft ceilings when there is enough space for 2 or even 3 separate rooms. And the TV volume is on for some reason. And the exhaust above the stove is on. And the kitchen faucet is running.

A lot of those conversations could have been just an email.

nice

19h century brick and concrete industrial buildings weren't built the same way. Or, obviously, to the same height. It's much easier to just gut them to the shell and then add in your modern amenities.

It should be doable to take each floor and put a kitchen / bathrooms / storage in the middle with living space around the exterior windows with connecting hallways. On larger buildings split it in half or quarters (the only issue then becomes stair access, which is often along the edge of a building and would need a hallway from a central elevator). You might have some odd bedroom arrangements with long narrow rooms to get some outside light in each, but I don't think its unworkable.

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