Micro-vacancy

Micro-vacancy Eric Lin and Sally Chae

Micro-vacancy Eric Lin and Sally Chae

In the age of the sharing economy, micro-vacancies produce a generative opportunity for co-working and suggest a new time-cycle oriented approach for architects when designing physical spaces. A micro-vacancy refers to the time over which spaces, services or talents lay idle within an existing and operating physical/commercial entity. These unused values could generate productive opportunities, just as Airbnb, Uber, and TaskRabbit have captured with idle space, service and talent, respectively.

Acting upon these micro-vacancies is fundamentally changing the way physical spaces are being used. By reoccupying and reactivating the fluctuating micro-vacancies in existing spaces, the act of co-working infiltrates traditionally fixed programs to further dissolve the framework of typology. While building typology refers to the conventional and stable relationship between architectural form and program, micro-vacancies introduce a fluctuating mix of programs which can only be spotted through periods in a time-cycle rather than through space assignments within the building form. Time reveals a new set of occupancy relationships for architects to design within, expanding the role of architect beyond physical and toward temporal and transitional approaches.

The following case studies will span across the multiple time-cycles, from daily, quarterly fluctuations to the economic cycle, in order to demonstrate how architects and their designs respond to, integrate with, or even propel new forms of co-working

within micro-vacancies. On the smallest scale, we see micro-vacancies occupied by various “station boxes” popping up in airports and train stations that provide a private, temporary space to rest and work.

Spacious is a co-working platform that spots and reactivates micro-vacancies within the daily off-hour periods of high-end dinner restaurants, with the use of minimal yet strategic design interventions. While such restaurants typically define the dining experience in a large city such as San Francisco or New York, their limited evening hours of operation presents a period of micro-vacancies from 9am to 5pm; leaving the restaurants’ main street locations and highly cultivated interiors wastefully idle. The day-time hours before dinner service happen to be an optimal period for co-working; with the designed restaurant

9 Spacious at The Milling Room. The interior is used as a co-working space during the daytime hours. Spacious, 2017

Spacious allows users to find locations with their app interface. Spacious, 2017

interiors as added design value to upend a co-working space. Therefore, Spacious eliminates the expense of long-term leases and build-outs otherwise required, while partnering restaurants gain additional revenue. The selection of partnering restaurants illustrates the type of infrastructure necessary to facilitate this temporal transformation. Furniture selection of tables and chairs need to be suitable for both dining and co-working. Interior lighting or daylighting into the dining space would be required for a functional work environment. Electrical systems such as power outlet layouts and data infrastructure such as wi-fi ports, would need to be designed or easily adjusted to accommodate office work. In addition to these embedded functionalities, restaurant interiors can shift into co-working operations with the use of physical signifiers such as portable signages, mobile kiosks, and coffee dispensers. Spacious exhibits a case that is able to reactivate micro-vacancies with minimal intervention by spotting opportunities embedded in the existing architectural infrastructure. Here, an existing program is left unhindered, but temporarily transformed and alternatively utilized through slight shifts to the environment and key timing in when it can operate. The economic adaptability of existing resources and energy across changing patterns of use become apparent as emerging operands for architectural design in the future.

Spacious micro-vacancies in use. Spacious, 2017

100 BANCH is a co-working space for startup companies in Shibuya, Tokyo that anticipates and integrates a shifting micro-vacancy environment through its adaptable interior design elements. The limited number of tenants that occupies the building at 3-month intervals continually re-invents the co-working space. Thus, the space must accommodate a constant cycle of shifting needs and activities at a quarterly time cycle. The architect of 100 BANCH, Jo Nagasaka, addresses this constraint with flexible interior moments, evidently extending the role of the architect in spatial organization that is conscious of functional adaptability. The second-floor work space “GARAGE” is a creative open space for tenants. The reachable ceiling height and the gridded, blanketed ceiling outlets are designed to introduce

100 BANCH 2F Plan by architect Jo Nagasaka.

the necessary tools for spatial reconfigurations. Furthermore, the duplex lamp socket is a removable ceiling-mounted lighting and power supply socket that can be easily attached and detached by hand so users can arrange their work space. The freedom of reconfiguration is expanded using height-adjustable mobile tables and detachable table-tops that can be hung from the ceiling as whiteboards. The highly interactive space in 100 BANCH embodies a milieu of spatial and elemental qualities that are designed to anticipate shifting patterns of use. The space becomes a highly reconfigurable environment for different working conditions and activities. The role of the architect becomes evidently focused on controlling how interior objects will actively perform and transform an architectural space.

100 BANCH Garage. The duplex lamp sockets are located at reachable height and are easy to mount and detach lighting and power supply. Authors, 2018

In addition to architectural design, a micro-vacancy could also be a powerful opportunity within an economic cycle. Office Depot, for example, responds to downward trends in office supply commerce and physical retail locations by allocating a portion of their stores to co-working uses. Big box retailers like Office Depot are experiencing a recession due to the rise of e-commerce, leaving large portions of the physical store idle. They developed the residual spaces into co-working hot-desks and offices in order to gain an additional revenue stream and to maintain their hold of the massive property resource. For the co-working user, this location provides the unique condition of proximity to office supplies, printing, packaging, shipping, and tech support that Office Depot already provides. In the end, the relationship between co-working and retail becomes symbiotic, cutting down on the cost to provide these services and supplies in a normal co-working space while also providing a built-in network of customers for the supplies, shipping, and printing. At this scale, architects aren’t merely designing a transitional interior space, but transforming and evolving a business to meet contemporary needs and markets by developing business

The coordination of physical and economic circumstances becomes an added mode of architectural intervention through the strategic adaptation of micro-vacancies. Micro-vacancies become opportunities for co-working to inhabit spaces at variant or non-conventional scales of an operable time-cycle. Whether availability is spotted within hours of a day, or within the span of an economic dow turn, micro-vacancies serve as a discernible starting point for architectural design. Under this process, architectural designers no longer work on buildings or even set programs. The designer becomes a scout of micro-vacancies and choreographer of constantly mutating programs. Current case studies pointed to physical signifiers (furniture, environmental quality, etc.) and building infrastructures (data and electrical system, etc.) as the place where architects authored the fluctuation of space at various time-cycles.

We suspect this paradigm shift to a time-oriented approach would lead to an even broader restructuring of how buildings are designed in the future. Strategically comprehensive mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems would be required for the constant rezoning of occupancy. Mobile and multifunctional architectural objects would be introduced to reliably activate the different uses. Lightweight yet durable materials can embody and withstand multiple purposes. Regenerative designs would allow for an economic adaptability of resource and energy across changing patterns of use. More robust circulation systems would be required to accommodate the various behaviors and movement. Finally, flexible partitions between spaces would be conditioned to absorb the ebb and flow of various activities. These dynamic conditions will constitute the role of architects within the time-based economy.