San Francisco based architects Kuth Ranieri Architects have unveiled a speculative proposal that aims to retrofit existing and underutilized office building clusters into mini-neighborhoods containing many of the daily necessities for residents of a post-pandemic city.

The firm's Post-Pandemic, Live + Work Micro-Hoods project envisions that the "rethinking the future of downtown will happen incrementally, on a block-by-block basis, through public-private partnerships, in parallel with policy and zoning changes." These changes, coupled with shifts in mobility as well as the rising phenomenon of more people working in their homes, will both make cities less auto-dominated as well as ripe for physical reconsideration, the architects explain. 

Particularly, the architects envision underutilized downtown office complexes as sites of reappropriation and redesign, and point to recently announced plans by California energy giant PG&E to vacate its downtown San Francisco headquarters as perhaps the first in many such moves. The designers envision transforming the company's interconnected headquarters buildings into a block-sized mixed-use district where inner-block courtyards and alleyways offer spaces for recreation while the remainder of the complex establishes a "collaborative approach to a shared-use neighborhood and community that is at the heart of a future urban neighborhood model."

"This micro-hood concept includes closing Beale Street between Market and Mission and transforming it into a public green," the designers write, "creating an elevated connected garden level within the block, introducing a mix of housing types from efficiency units to family flats, and incorporating public amenities that might include a myriad of small business retailers, food and beverage providers, a community center, a maker space, fitness programs, a clinic, and a natatorium." Additionally, the building would be retrofitted to include "spaces for urban agriculture, light manufacturing, water treatment, energy production, and energy storage."