Commercial property

Covid offers opportunity to reshape cities, says architect Foster

Pandemic accelerates trends that could see vacant offices become residential towers

Lord Norman Foster: ‘Perhaps the obsolete office building becomes the residential tower of the future’ © Oscar Del Pozo/AFP
via Getty Images

George Hammond in London YESTERDAY

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Offices left vacant by coronavirus could become the residential towers of the future
and holes in the high street could be plugged by urban farms, Lord Norman Foster
has said, as the architect laid out his vision for post-pandemic cities.

Coronavirus is “an accelerant” of trends that will reshape global cities, including
the repurposing of buildings for alternative use and the pedestrianisation of larger
swaths of urban centres, according to the architect of some of the world’s best-
known office buildings, including the Gherkin in London and Apple’s headquarters
in Cupertino, California.

The pandemic has brought us to a “crossroads” in the evolution of the office, Foster
told the Financial Times in an interview: dated workspaces with low floor to ceiling
heights and repetitive layouts risked slipping into obsolescence as the pandemic
triggers more demand for homeworking.

But that space could be used creatively, including for more housing in city centres.

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“Perhaps the obsolete office building becomes the residential tower of the
future . . . If you can relax about zoning, then perhaps the department store which
is zoned as retail can be rezoned for leisure, as a cinema, or for industry,” he said.
The repurposing of defunct commercial buildings, particularly for housing, has
proved controversial in the UK. The loosening of regulations over recent years has
encouraged a spate of retail to residential conversions, but local planning officers
and the Royal Institute of British Architects have raised concerns that the resulting
flats are often poor quality and cramped.

An office block converted into flats in Croydon, south London © Tolga Akmen/FT

The government is considering rolling regulations back even further so that a far
wider range of commercial buildings could be converted into residential use. The
British Property Federation, which represents commercial property owners, has
warned that risks flooding high streets with poor quality homes at the expense of
local businesses and services.

Despite recent controversy, Foster said repurposing was “not exactly radical”. “You
can’t walk down the street without seeing a repurposed Georgian residential
terrace,” he said.

By accelerating the decline of high street retail and raising questions about the
future of offices, the pandemic has underscored the importance of designing
buildings that can be remodelled into alternative use, he added.

As well as being practical, designing adaptable buildings has the potential to lower
the carbon footprint of the built environment. “Those buildings which are
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adaptable will survive. That is the ultimate sustainable building: one you can
recycle, rather than destroy, throw away and start again,” Foster said.
Ed Walter, chief executive of the Urban Land Institute, a think-tank, said: “Climate
change is already having a significant impact on the places where we live, work,
learn, and play, and recognition is growing across the real estate industry that now
is the time to take action.”

The pandemic has the potential to leave behind greener, pedestrian-friendly cities,
said Foster, whose practice worked on the pedestrianisation of London’s Trafalgar
Square in 2003.

He drew parallels with cholera outbreaks in New York in the 19th century, which
caused an exodus in the short-term but ultimately encouraged planners to create
wider streets, improve water sanitation and carve out parts of the city for major
parks.

By upending long-established patterns of behaviour, coronavirus could similarly

reshape the urban environment, particularly under the stewardship of activist city
leaders, said Foster.

A slew of employee surveys in recent months have shown an appetite to work from
home for at least a portion of the week. “That adds up to not all of the people being
in one place all the time. Maybe, the rush hour will be a piece of history past,” said
Foster.

And while employees in jobs that allow homeworking could live further from the
office, Foster suggested that key workers should be supported through civic
housebuilding projects or the conversion of commercial property to be able to live
closer to city centres.

“Those who we depend on to run the city, to police it, to put out the fires and take
away the dead bodies, if one consequence [of the pandemic] is that they don’t have
to commute at uncivil hours [from] the outer fringes of the city . . . that would be a
monumental score.”

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