The Post-Corporate Dwelling

By Laura Salazar-Altobelli

"The project investigates the role of adaptation and reuse in architecture as a response to pressing environmental, social, and spatial challenges. Its central focus examines the conversion of New York City’s vacant office towers into residential housing as an architectural response to the housing crisis and the growing obsolescence of office space following shifts in work patterns. With Manhattan’s office vacancy rate hovering between 15–22%, this underused building stock presents a significant opportunity to rethink urban density through transformation.

Developed through a design seminar at the School of Architecture, the research proposes a visual and architectural framework for converting former office towers into housing, focusing specifically on façade retrofit strategies capable of transforming obsolete office buildings into post-corporate dwellings. Guided by recent policy initiatives such as City of Yes, the project identifies suitable candidates for conversion and assembles an archive of midcentury towers by Emery Roth & Sons in Midtown Manhattan. Each building reflects a distinct typology shaped by the zoning ordinances in place at the time of its construction, making them representative prototypes of a broader building stock. While these towers contribute to the iconography of the city through their morphology and façade design, they are not protected as historic landmarks. The project therefore argues for the preservation of their visual identity while demonstrating that transformation can occur within the aesthetic language of the original architecture. In doing so, it raises broader disciplinary questions about the value of the generic within a paradigm of architectural adaptation.

The research focuses on the façade as the critical interface between the building interior—subject to change of use—and the city, as well as the site where technological innovation has been concentrated. As a technological device, the façade becomes a platform for the introduction of low-tech, passive strategies for sun shading, ventilation, and acoustic protection. The exhibition presents this investigation through analytical drawings of selected Emery Roth & Sons buildings, photographic documentation of the existing structures, and façade retrofit proposals developed through drawings and physical models that speculate on how the midcentury office tower might be transformed into a contemporary domestic environment while retaining its urban identity."