Adaptive Reuse of Federal Office Buildings into Housing: Leveraging Federal Office Downsizing Initiatives

Abstract

As part of the August 2024 budget announcement, Canada’s federal government outlined a plan to optimize their real estate holdings by downsizing its office portfolio by 50%. In Ottawa, home to 42.2% of the federal workforce, this move would release 8.8 million sqft. The downtown core would be hit the hardest as widespread vacancies would force local businesses to close. This would harm not only the vitality of the area, but also the overall health and vibrancy of the city. This projected oversupply of office buildings lies in contrast to the Canada’s ongoing housing crisis. The country is desperately in need of affordable purpose-built rental housing. If it was to set a needs-based target for affordable rental housing it is estimated that the country would need 2 million affordable rental housing units at and below a minimum-wage income, which would take 30 years to build.

Despite the federal government’s repeated commitments to addressing the issue, it has failed to dismantle the systemic profit-driven structures perpetuating residential alienation. This thesis builds upon existing research suggesting that converting federal offices into housing can address the housing crisis and repurpose soon-to-be vacant federal properties. It critiques current housing and adaptive reuse practices which are driven by profit and approach the crisis as a supply issue which perpetuates profit-driven commodification of housing which fails to disalienate housing. Ottawa presents opportunity to challenge the status quo of for-profit housing through federal-office-to-residential conversions. It imagines utilizing existing public assets - federal public land and vacant federal offices - for the public’s benefit by converting vacant federal offices in Ottawa into non-market housing. This can simultaneously lower the environmental impact of construction and construction costs while also creating decommodified, affordable, and good quality housing.

Aside from revitalizing vacant buildings and building nonmarket housing, this strategy also has the added benefit of being environmentally beneficial too. Repurposing existing surplus buildings presents significant opportunity to mitigate building emissions through limiting construction and improving building performance which lowers operational energy-use and emissions.

Research is grounded in axiological thought and seeks to critically examine, challenge, and redefine the underlying capitalist values embedded within Canada’s housing to support an expanded spectrum of what housing, living, and domesticity should and could be. Research methodologies consist of literature review, case studies, and speculative design as research. A literature review will act as the thesis’ theoretical framework by examining critical housing research challenging existing capitalist understandings of housing and propose nonmarket housing as the solution. Building on this will be a series of case studies, literature review, and speculative design to develop a successful and implementable nonmarket housing strategy. Case studies will examine successful nonmarket housing programs locally and internationally and measure both their successes and ease of implementation to outline an Ottawa-specific nonmarket housing strategy. This will be followed by a literature review and further case studies examining adaptive reuse strategies and office-to-residential conversions architectural, technical, and financial considerations to inform proper adaptive reuse practices. Finally, all research findings will be synthesized into a speculative design proposal for the conversion of the L’Esplanade Laurier federal office building in downtown Ottawa. The goal of the design proposal is to illustrate the viability and potential for impact of non-profit federal office-to-residential conversions.

This thesis is intended to function both as a document demonstrating the potential for change within Canada’s current housing system and as a guide to federal office-to-residential conversions. It will demonstrate what is possible if all levels of government, housing developers, stakeholders, and community groups commit to systemic changes for housing disalienation. Housing within Canada can get better. Federal office-to-residential conversions can be part of the solution to the Canada’s housing system if the right steps are taken.