As hybrid work becomes the new normal, organisations are rethinking what makes a productive workplace. One surprising insight? It’s not the ping pong tables or open-plan lounges that matter most—it’s control.
In a recent episode of the Economics Explored podcast, award-winning American architect Kevin Kennon told show host Gene Tunny that what people truly value in an office is the ability to shape their working environment. “We all want greater control over our environment,” Kennon explained. That desire for autonomy, he argued, has a more profound impact on productivity than any trendy workplace perk.
Kennon’s experience designing large, complex buildings—from corporate headquarters in Manhattan to adaptive reuse projects—gives him a unique perspective. He emphasised that productivity-boosting design isn’t about adding bells and whistles, but about providing workers with environmental control over temperature, lighting, space, and air quality.
One key issue is thermal comfort. Office workers often complain about offices being too hot or cold—rarely right. Kennon argued that this stems from overly centralised heating and cooling systems. Smarter design allows different zones within an office to be independently adjusted, allowing occupants to fine-tune their surroundings to suit their needs. This flexibility can reduce discomfort and distraction, enhancing concentration and well-being.
Lighting is another factor. Access to natural light is known to support circadian rhythms and reduce fatigue. Kennon suggested designing workspaces that maximise daylight exposure and enable users to adjust lighting levels within their immediate environment. These adjustments, though small, can cumulatively improve focus and reduce workplace stress.
Beyond lighting and temperature, the layout of office spaces also plays a critical role. In hybrid settings, where not all employees are present daily, offices must offer a mix of quiet zones, collaborative areas, and shared desks. Giving workers a choice of where and how they work within the office helps replicate some of the autonomy they enjoy at home, making them more willing to return.
This flexibility extends to building infrastructure, too. Kennon highlighted that operable windows or semi-outdoor spaces in some climates can enhance comfort and reduce air conditioning costs. Such designs can also help reconnect workers with nature, an increasingly important consideration in post-pandemic office design.
According to Kennon, from an economic standpoint, these features are not luxuries—they’re investments in productivity. When workers are comfortable and empowered, they perform better. Businesses benefit from higher output, and decision makers should take note. As Kennon observed, architects can offer valuable insight into how people interact with space, and should be included in conversations about workplace design and economic performance.
Recent research from Japan reinforces the importance of thoughtful office design on worker productivity and well-being. A 2023 study published in Building and Environment by Japanese researchers analysed data from 1,644 workers across 29 Tokyo office buildings to quantify the economic benefits of optimised office environments. The researchers found that interior furnishings, airflow, and overall building sanitation had the most substantial impact on perceived work efficiency, while desk lighting was most strongly associated with reducing presenteeism–that is, where employees are physically present at work but are not fully productive due to illness, injury, stress, exhaustion, or other health-related or personal issues. Their findings suggest that improving—or even just removing negative elements of—the office environment can generate substantial economic gains, with benefits exceeding ¥200,000 (approx. AUD 2,000) per employee annually in some cases. These results align closely with Kevin Kennon’s observations on Economics Explored, further highlighting that investing in user-focused design is not just about comfort—it’s also good economics.
In short, better design leads to better business outcomes. As hybrid work reshapes how we think about offices, thoughtful architectural design prioritising user control, comfort, and flexibility can help bridge the gap between home and office—and ultimately, support higher productivity.
Listen to Kevin Kennon’s full interview with Gene Tunny on the Economics Explored podcast:
This article is cross-posted at adepteconomics.com.au. Please send any comments or questions to show host Gene Tunny at contact@economicsexplored.com.
Transcript: Rethinking Property and Taxation: The Georgist Approach w/ Kevin Kennon
N.B. This is a lightly edited version of a transcript originally created using the AI application otter.ai. It may not be 100 percent accurate, but should be pretty close. If you’d like to quote from it, please check the quoted segment in the recording.
Kevin Kennon 00:03
The misconception about architects is that we just sort of solve spatial problems or esthetic problems. But I think that if you, if you really sort of broaden that and understand that, I think what we do best sometimes is imagine the future. And if that sounds a little utopian, on my part, I am guilty as char I think we need a better future.
Gene Tunny 00:30
Welcome to the economics explored podcast, a frank and fearless exploration of important economic issues. I’m your host, Gene Tunny, I’m a professional economist and former Australian Treasury official. The aim of this show is to help you better understand the big economic issues affecting all our lives. We do this by considering the theory evidence and by hearing a wide range of views. I’m delighted that you can join me for this episode. Please check out the show notes for relevant information. Now on to the show.
Gene Tunny 01:02
I Hello and welcome to the show. This episode is all about the future of cities, housing affordability and the role that architecture plays in shaping urban life. My guest is Kevin kennen, an award winning architect. He’s known for landmark projects, especially in New York City, including the Sotheby’s and Barclays headquarters and the renovation of Macy’s Herald Square. In our conversation, Kevin highlights the importance of a smarter approach to density, the strategic blending of residential, commercial and community spaces into vibrant, integrated neighborhoods. He challenges traditional zoning practices that segregate city functions, arguing instead for flexible, mixed use developments that foster both livability and economic vitality. In our conversation, Kevin also shares his insights on the economic forces influencing urban design, the challenges and potential of modular housing and why architects should have a greater role in shaping public policy. Special. Thanks to Lumo coffee for sponsoring this episode. This top quality organic coffee from the highlands of Peru is packed with healthy antioxidants, economics explored. Listeners can enjoy a 10% discount. Details are in the show notes. Now let’s jump into the episode. I hope you enjoy it.
Kevin Kennon 02:20
Kevin Kenan, welcome to the program. Thank you, gene for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. Of course,
Gene Tunny 02:25
Kevin, it’s great to have you on the show. You’re a very distinguished architect, so you’ve won various awards, and you’ve been finalists in important competitions, such as for the redeveloped World Trade Center, the start of the World Trade Center in New York City, and I’m keen to get your thoughts on what drew you to architecture in the first place. To start with, I’m interested in that because I mean architecture something I think a lot of us, we get interested in, but I’m just wondering what, what got you interested in at a at a young age, and what led to your career?
Kevin Kennon 03:01
Well, you know, I, even though I’m headquartered in New York City, I grew up just outside of Los Angeles, and I think that I was always fascinated by these houses that were built kind of right on the edge of cliffs and and just the the magic that that it took to do that, and living in that sort of landscape, which is certainly not dissimilar to the east coast of Australia, in many ways, it’s the same general Geography and Climate. But you know, just that idea of kind of Building With Nature and sort of on the precipices was one of the first things that drew me to architecture. And, you know, I kind of continue to develop that. I went to college here on the East Coast and have stayed in New York, even though my foundation was sort of in that sort of more of a agrarian, almost rural type of landscape, I just was fascinated by New York City for different reasons. And have, you know, built my career, you know, really first in New York, but also all over the world, and I’ve been fortunate in that regard. Yeah, yeah,
Gene Tunny 04:25
just on the difference between saying, I mean, New York’s obviously very dense, and, LA, you’ve got more room to how important are the economic considerations in the design? Can you speak to that at all, please? Kevin, well,
Kevin Kennon 04:38
well, New York, if you understand anything about the city is really, it’s almost built like a chess board for real estate. It’s it’s meant, it’s a very rationalized sort of system. And, you know, it’s so economics. Is the primary driver here. You kind of understand that, especially working as I do, and mostly into the commercial part of architecture. So you’re attuned to how that works. But at the same time, in order to make that work, you have to be able to navigate a lot of different community issues, regulatory issues, understanding who exactly is going to be occupying the buildings that you do. And then I think even a larger purpose. You know, what are the goals to make New York a better city, or in the case of LA, where I’ve done, actually done some work as well. You know how to understand what those conditions are. And then they vary, obviously, by location. Yeah,
Gene Tunny 05:53
gotcha, gotcha. And what are some of the buildings that you’ve designed in New York City? For example, is it? Is it Sotheby’s? Did I get that right? You’ve got some
Kevin Kennon 06:01
of these headquarters, the Auction House. Actually, the world headquarters is in New York City. I’ve done that building, Macy’s Herald Square. I completely redid that from top to bottom, and it was kind of an interesting job, because we had to keep that building running at all time. It could never go dark. And and then the Barclays North American headquarters in Times Square, which is a large skyscraper here. And I’ve also done some more sort of smaller projects. There was the original American Express building, which was built in 1864 as a historic building in Tribeca. And then we completely, I co developed that, reimagined that entire building for a kind of bespoke group of investors who actually became the occupants of the building. And we designed those as luxury apartments.
Gene Tunny 07:02
Gotcha, gotcha. And I don’t know if you’ve Have you, uh, read, or the the fountain head at all, or seen the film. I just thought I’d ask, given that it’s a, you know, economic show, and I’ve there are a lot of people who are a lot of economists, who may not necessarily be fans of Ayn Rand, but are familiar with Ayn Rand, and I just wonder, as an architect, how much, how much freedom do you have to bring in your own individuality and creativity, given that you have to do work for clients and you’ve got the economic overlay, like, how do you, how do you think about those, those considerations?
Kevin Kennon 07:39
Well, from the perspective of somebody who designs large, complex building projects across multiple different types, I can attest to the fact that it is very much a collaborative enterprise, despite how it’s portrayed in the movies, the founder being the first and then lately, the one that people probably are most aware of would be the brutalist. And it’s not a solo sort of enterprise. Now, I’m typically the guy they bring in at the very beginning of projects as design architect. I’m the sort of point of the spear, so to speak, and then. But, you know, there are 1000s of people, obviously, who are involved in a building, say, the scale of Barclays headquarters, which is a million a half square feet and over 600 feet tall. You know, to do that kind of project, there’s a cast of 1000s, and so you have to be able to understand how to work with a variety of expertise, both in design and construction engineering, economics. You know that that obviously, when you have a financial firm as the client, that building was actually originally designed for Morgan Stanley, when they they sold it to Lehman Brothers, which had been displaced after the World Trade Center. And of course, we know what happens to Lehman Brothers. So it is, it is, it is. It became sort of the, essentially, the poster child of the financial crisis. And so every time they show footage of that time, it’s usually people coming out of the building, repairing cardboard boxes. Yeah. So anyway, so it so understanding the complexities of all the different ways in which that goes together has given me kind of a unique perspective, not just on architecture, but really the architecture engineering, construction and development industry. Yeah,
Gene Tunny 09:57
that makes sense. I wish I’d seen the brutalist before i. I had this interview, I have to check it out. I haven’t seen it yet. I mean, brutalism is, is something I have mixed feelings about, because I think we’ve like in Brisbane here, we’ve got some great brutalist buildings, particularly on the south bank. We’ve got our Performing Arts Center and our museum, which I think is one of the really great examples of brutalism. But then there are other sort of buildings, particularly at our universities, which are just ugly really, or they haven’t lasted. They haven’t sort of stood the test of time. So yeah. So yeah, what are your general thoughts on brutalism? Kevin, well,
Kevin Kennon 10:37
you know, I mean, I think I like to think of because I’d like all kinds of architecture, I having re imagined a really prominent historic building in the city, actually, to Macy’s was from 1902 which in New York is pretty old, and obviously this 1864 building the American Express Company, was also quite interesting and challenging. So I like working with those types of buildings, and I think you have to assess each building on its own merits. There are lots of terrible historic buildings, there are lots of terrible modern buildings, and there’s certainly a lot of terrible brutalist buildings, but you know, occasionally they can be repurposed and reimagined in ways that I think you know, kind of transcend just the stylistic definitely.
Gene Tunny 11:35
Okay, great. Now, recently, you’ve become concerned, or it seems you’re concerned about housing, of affordability, the availability of housing. What can you? Can you tell us, what are your thoughts on, what’s the current housing situation? What is What have you been thinking about recently? Please. Kevin, well,
Kevin Kennon 11:55
I think obviously top to mind with everybody these days are tariffs and the impact that there have on on housing. And, you know, it’s, there’s a lot of similarities to the automobile industry and or aviation in that, you know, a great deal of materials that we use here in New York come from other places, and, you know, we essentially have had a more or less free market, and that’s been one way we’ve been able to control costs. You know, the the impact is potentially has on interest rates and inflation. You know, that’s also part of the equation, because, as as developers and housing any anything that, especially having to do it on a sort of mass scale, you know, the slide is tick one way or the other, and interest rates can make or break a project, because it’s all done with leverage. And, you know, and I I understand that in Australia, you know, a lot of the private houses go through auction, which is quite different than the way which we tend to broker housing here, you know, which I think has its sort of, you know, pluses and I guess minuses, and that, at least it sort of has a transparency to it, which I can appreciate and like, but we’re just talking in general, just housing. And how can we increase the affordability of housing? You know, I think that really has to do with making, in my mind, it has a lot to do with sort of free trade and keeping those avenues open to allow people who are in that space the maximum ability to at least make some kind of a profit, And at the same time be able to produce market rate or below market rate affordable housing,
Gene Tunny 14:07
right? Yep. So are you already seeing? Have you seen the impact of the I mean, these tariffs, the we had, the Liberation Day ones, and then I think, I can’t remember the timing, but he’s also imposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico. So have they started to affect the cost of inputs, and that’s been factored into building projects? Kevin, have you seen that? Well,
Kevin Kennon 14:30
you know, we already had a problem with supply to begin with. So it’s a complex, you know, problem, because we had had so historically low interest rates for quite a while, since, really about 2011 and a lot of people who bought homes at that point were paying, you know, three, three and a half percent interest rates. So all of a sudden, you. Even though they may have been looking, you know, to sell or and they weren’t necessarily looking to refinance, and they weren’t necessarily looking to to sell and then go into a higher rate mortgage. So, you know, there was a sort of a pause in general, buying and selling, where there wasn’t a lot of movement. And then the problem, of course, is like there’s a phenomenon housing, and I’m sure it’s the same in Australia, where, if you have a housing development, and let’s say it’s mostly done on spec, and there’s some kind of a pause, and people’s demand. You know, if you wait too long, that housing goes scale. Nobody wants it anymore, because they feel it’s, it’s already, you know, if I’m going to buy something, I want to buy something new, yes, and, and so it’s a, it’s a tricky thing to do to be able to control inventory, make sure you’re, you know, purchasing the right way. And then, on top of all this, we’ve had a huge influx of private equity capital into the housing market, where essentially they would base look for for deals and just buy up the land and essentially freeze a lot of buyers, you know, smaller buyers, out of the market. So it’s, you know, it’s a strange, strange conglomerate of different forces here that have really to some degrees, but put a toehold on the market. And of course, now it’s everybody’s sort of sitting around waiting to see what’s happened. So you know, when you have an environment where already things are slowing down, there was the, just the logistics of getting material, we kind of just sort of managed to get over that hump. So the lead times on building materials wasn’t quite as long. And then also you slap these tariffs on and and then you take them away, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s very, very difficult as a certainly, as a developer, to know exactly what to do. Yeah,
Gene Tunny 17:26
yeah. There’s a lot of uncertainty at the moment. I think there’s the point Paul Krugman and and other economists have made, and just how disruptive that is, how, how negative an impact that will have on investment, on capital investment. So absolutely, and you mentioned the disruption. So the disruptions associated, the disruptions to supply chains associated with the pandemic, I presume you you’re talking about,
Kevin Kennon 17:52
yeah, yeah. And I you know, so we get a lot of lumber from from Canada, a lot of aluminum from Canada as well and so. But, you know, there’s the whole host of other products that we rely on the supply chain, but in order to, you know, put our houses together. And that, when I say houses, I mean everything from multi family housing that you find in more urban and denser neighborhoods and to single home family that you find more in places like Los Angeles, yeah,
Gene Tunny 18:32
our restrictions on development, restrictions on the Growth corridor of cities, restrictions on what Greenfield developments you could have, and also character restrictions or heritage protection. Are they? Are they factors affecting housing supply in the US? Kevin, well,
Kevin Kennon 18:53
you know what we call NIMBY issues, not in my backyard, those, those those play into a lot of development. So not only do you have sort of regulatory issues and zoning restrictions that, for example, New York the zoning is quite complex. And if you cannot invest in New York City, if you don’t know what you’re doing, or you don’t hire experts who understand the zoning in New York although, you know, one of the good things about New York City is that, over the historic long run, it’s a very valuable investment, and usually a safe harbor For international investors as well. So that plays a huge factor into timing and knowing how to to essentially navigate those regulatory environments. Is is really key. Now, what’s happening in places like Los Angeles is. Or in Miami and Florida, I think certainly places near Sydney Australia right now is probably have insurances coming in, and those areas where there have been catastrophic damage. And essentially, either, you know, making the premiums so out of reach that most people can’t afford it anymore. Or, you know, putting some so many restrictions on that that that has an impact on where people are able to afford to live. Yeah,
Gene Tunny 20:36
that’s definitely having an impact on in North Queensland, the insurance premiums have just risen massively because they’re they’re more subject to cyclones. Sydney has had some significant flooding. So yeah, I’ll have to see. We’ll have to see what that does to their insurance premiums. But yep, that is definitely one of the big issues, as is the, you know, just the high, high price of land. Kevin, can I ask us, as an architect, how can you, how can better architecture, better design, or better urban design, improve housing affordability, please?
Kevin Kennon 21:10
Well, you know, I think the the thing about, and this is where I would say my colleagues who were working in Los Angeles now are doing some very interesting development there. That is, you know, I think there’s a number of factors that that work very well if you have a climate that is fairly temperate like Los Angeles, is it’s easier to create, I think, kind of more livable spaces where there’s a connection between indoors and outdoors, and that allows for, you know, the It gets around the kind of big urban block, sort of eyes stores that we think of, especially sort of brutalist examples of urban housing that we know they don’t work, and they become, ultimately, sort of places that people really don’t want To live, and if they do, they’re usually not managed well. So there’s a lot of examples of that. I think the best housing tends to be some kind of a blend of what we call public and private. There are certain relaxations and say, regulations in exchange for private development to make at least the margins work, so that if you know what you’re doing and you can plan it the right way, you should be able to create better, better housing, more livable housing, And in particular, what we are all looking for as architects these days is finding ways to connect people to the outdoors. There’s an effort right now to especially New York City, and there’s incentives in that regard to create more green areas make our streets less dependent upon cars, more pedestrian friendly, you know, and as we do that, I think the opportunity to connect to nature and really turn the whole city into much more of A kind of landscape than just a concrete jungle, not to mix my metaphors, but yeah, I think you understand what I’m saying. Yeah,
Gene Tunny 23:48
gotcha. Gotcha. So that’s interesting. So does that mean lower density, in some cases, in New York City? Is that what you’re pushing for?
Kevin Kennon 23:57
Well, I think it’s it’s smarter density is pushing. The biggest problem that we have in New York City with our zoning code is it’s very it just it takes certain areas of the city and defines them as, these are residential areas and these are commercial areas, and sort of, to some degree, segregates the living areas from the more commercial. This happened with a lot of cities. And, you know, I think the thinking nowadays is that now the best and most vibrant communities have a mix of everything, you know, sort of shops, people can buy and galleries and and then also smaller offices, small manufacturing, co working spaces, different types of living conditions, green areas. You know, the sort of a more vibrant mix that happens. It can happen across the streets. It can happen adjacent, you know, but to each other. Or it can even happen if you have a building big enough in the single building where, you know, you might have a variety of uses, but actually occur within one building. And those are the things that I’m most excited about, not just for New York, but all over the world, where we can sort of build in to any development that sort of more vibrant mix of different uses.
Gene Tunny 25:35
Gotcha. Gotcha. So that that makes sense, because I was just wondering, hang on, we because we’ve got, we’ve got growing populations, then we don’t want to necessarily decrease density. What we’re talking about a lot here in Australia is, well, there’s a movement I’ve had one of the guests on the people involved in it, Natalie Raymond. She’s part of this group called yimby Yes in my backyard. And you know, she talks about gentle density. Have you heard of that concept? Is that compatible with what you’re talking about? Yeah, I think
Kevin Kennon 26:07
it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s another sort of offshoot of what I’m talking about, which is, you know, being smart about density. And there are areas in New York City where, frankly, are hyper dense, but, you know, but because they’ve been treated a certain way, there’s a certain sensitivity to it there, there. You don’t really feel overwhelmed by the density. You just have to have the right infrastructure for it, and you have to understand the you don’t want to throw out really, what might be very good bones are great buildings that may have been us their utility as a particular type of use, but can be reimagined into something, you know, vibrant and new. I mean this the American Express building that I keep referring to had been, over the years. It started as the American Express. Is like the Pony Express you’ve ever read anything about the Wild West, which was it? You know, the base of it was a stable, so all the horses above that were offices, and that had had, you know, by the time we started develop it, it was, it was virtually unrecognizable, almost as ability had become, you know, painted on with graffiti. It had been used a long time as the studio of the mid century modern artist Alex sculptor Alexander Calder. That was his studio. And, you know, it was just that kind of rediscovery of some really amazing architecture that more or less almost hidden, so that, that kind of, you know, priority of well first, before we decide to build something new, let’s see if we can’t simply re imagine what’s already there.
Gene Tunny 28:09
Okay, we’ll take a short break here for a word from our sponsor.
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Gene Tunny 28:44
now, back to the show. I liked what you’re saying about mixed use, or not having these rigid if I’m interpreting you correctly, not having these rigid definitions or delineations of what should go, where in a city. And I think one of the issues we’ve got here, and I know you, you haven’t been to Brisbane, so you may not this is good, but I’m interested in generally, like, What the What principles we should be thinking of, rather than you diagnosing. Well, this is the problem with Brisbane, and this is what I recommend, like, we’ve got, it’s not very dense outside of a few little few areas, so in our CBD. And then there are some former commercial areas that we’ve allowed intensive high rises in. And then there are these other suburbs. It is city suburbs. We’ve got these old Queenslanders. There’s this iconic style of house, a tin and timber house in Brisbane with verandas and and which I think is is good from the point of view you’re talking about, about connecting you with the outdoors. I think they’re wonderful for that. The issue is that there are a whole bunch of them, and we’re protecting they’re very hard to it’s very hard to redevelop those sites. And it means that we’re you. There’s a lot of there are opportunities for increasing density, even just to a mild sort of level of general density that we’re missing out on in Brisbane. So I’m just wondering, how should what are some without asking you specifically about Brisbane? Well, what are some principles we should be thinking about if we’ve got this situation where we’ve got a growing population and we’ve got very scarce land. Well,
Kevin Kennon 30:23
yeah, I mean, that’s a, it’s a, it’s not an easy, you know, problem. And I would hate to over generalize, because I always believe that fundamentally, real estate is local and has its own sort of conditions. And understanding what those needs are, understanding also what the response is from the community as a whole. But you know, so the and the thing you have to watch out for is, you know, you could say, well, we’re going to preserve some of that, and we’ll keep that, but you don’t want to turn it into sort of a, sort of a museum or artifact or life list, you still want, you know, those things to be vibrant. But, you know, I think that the way to do something like that is you start to sort of nibble a little bit around the edges and carefully insert some sort of larger scale buildings that that serve, you know, the needs of the community. And then ultimately, I think, you know, you can start to to help to generate something that’s positive in there, you know, by by, simply by trying to provide the right kind of housing for the kind of the demographics that you’re looking for, the demographics there, you know. So if it’s younger people coming in and and entrepreneurs coming in to set up vibrant not just, you know, to live there, but also invest in that community, help it grow. Those are the kinds of incentives that would be, you know, I think very useful. Gotcha, are
Gene Tunny 32:12
there any examples that come to your mind, Kevin, about of developments that have been done well, of cities that are that are providing the right incentives, or the right policy settings.
Kevin Kennon 32:22
I think Austin is probably the one that most comes to mind, you know, which is it was always a very interesting city to begin with, and I think the fact that it has a connection to the university, University of Texas there, but they, you know, they’ve done a lot to attract startups and technology and those types of enterprises and so, you know, research center areas where there is that connection, tends to be places that I see, I think the most exciting kinds of newer development happening. Same thing around in Silicon Valley, there’s been some Santa Clara, the city I know pretty well. In California, there’s, you know, that that same, similar type of thing was some fairly low density areas, but increasingly have densified in I think, a thoughtful way that that generally enhances the the Community and brings more investment that benefits not just the immediate location of wherever you’re building a development, but in the general area as well. Gotcha,
Gene Tunny 33:51
okay, I have to try and check out some of these, some examples of residential developments that are that are doing it well. Do any come to mind? I mean, you mentioned a couple of cities, but are there any specific developments that are worth checking out?
Kevin Kennon 34:06
You know, that’s a good question. I don’t you know. I know, just in general, and so you kind of put me on the spot, specific ones, but I think I there’s a lot of interesting work being done in Austin right now. And and Texas tends to be an area that’s the at least the governmental regulations are a little more relaxed. And, you know, as a result, it’s, it’s, you know, I think that it’s grown very rapidly over the past 15 years, and more or less consistently. And, you know, so it’s if you wanted to look, you know, at what I think is a successful model, I think that’s a really good one. Okay, I’ll have a look. It sounds a lot like what you’re how you’re describing. Of investment,
Gene Tunny 35:00
right? Okay, okay. I’m wondering about social housing, or in the UK, they’d call it council housing. I don’t know what the term is in in the States, well, to what I’m not sure to what extent is provided, but we’ve got a growing homeless problem here in Australia, and we’ve never really had significant homelessness. Well, we didn’t historically, at least for the in the 70s, 80s or 90s, and suddenly it’s become a problem. And I’m wondering to what extent do we need public investment in in social housing to try to help the people who would otherwise not be able to get get housing in the private market. And do you have any thoughts on that and how design principles for social housing? Yeah,
Kevin Kennon 35:49
again, I would look New York is a challenge, and mainly because, in order to do what we call low income housing, it’s is typically has to be done at scale before actually makes any economic sense. So major investments, whereas I think in in places like Brisbane or other places I know more specifically so outskirts to Sydney or Melbourne. You know where you have it’s, it’s a little bit more like LA and I think there’s some amazing examples of really very, very good low income housing that’s been and sort of medium low to medium density, low income housing. That’s been done very, very well, and La embarked on, but it’s very been a very ambitious project where they insisted that the developers there in exchange for government assistance. I think it’s mostly tax abatement. Is tax credits. Is how it works that they hire very top level architects. And architects work at a below rate, you know, their normal rate. They said there’s a sort of a trade off there, but that’s really helped a lot. And what’s interesting is, because you have so many fantastic architects in Australia, I’m always jealous, because i i Look, I tend to look at a lot of architecture AU, so the you know, so I, and I see so many fantastic things going on there. I’ve always wanted to do something in Australia, because it seems like such a great place to work, but, but you have so many amazing architects there that I think if you were to really look into the same program that they have in LA for low income housing, it was. It’s a definite model that you could follow. Okay,
Gene Tunny 38:04
I have to check that out. And what’s the role of of urban transport, of public transport in in better design. How do you think about that? How do you think about the cost of it? What the right, you know, I mean, is that just something that is exogenous to what you’re doing, or do you like, how does it come into your to your thinking?
Kevin Kennon 38:28
Well, you know, the New York just changed its own in recently, and it’s it has allowed for greater density in certain areas, depending on your proximity to local transport, and specifically the subway lines or rail lines. And, you know, so it’s it does it kind of the two are tied together, you know, because if you’re trying to attract sort of new, new blood and new talent into those areas. Generally, they’re not people who have a lot of money, but, you know, they have a lot of ideas, a lot of energy, and so, you know, if you can provide lower income housing and connect that to transportation that’s going to ensure better success for those developments, because more people are going to be, you know, looking for places to live that’s near a place that they can easily commute into wherever they Need to go around the city,
Gene Tunny 39:40
yeah, yeah. Just wondering about it, because it’s one of the big issues seen in the cost of of housing or apartment buildings. Here in Australia, is the cost of providing car parks. And this is it’s become contentious. So in Melbourne, in Melbourne, in I forget if which Council it was. I. In the Melbourne area, they they lowered the number of car parks that you needed for development to go ahead, which is lowered the cost, and meant that you’ve had additional development in places like, I think it’s Richmond in in Melbourne, but then you’ve got a lot of the locals say, Well, hang on. Well, they’re going to end up parking on the street, and that’s no good. There’s a reason we have those, those restrictions. Do you have any thoughts on car parking and how we handle car parking? Well,
Kevin Kennon 40:28
la had the same problem. You know, I remember, I did a project for a major department store that was going to be located in Beverly Hills, California, and in order to make this work, we were going to have to build a five level underground, you know, multi level garage, and have all the loading and everything. Yeah, it just become cost prohibitive to do that. So, yeah, it’s, I think, you know, easing the restrictions on development of car parts is a big plus. A lot of what I’ve seen, the solution to what you’re talking about is, you said, essentially building off site community garages, you know, so that to take care of those, you know, additional parking. And these can, again, we always think of these as being large, but they can actually, you know, be a relatively small size, as long as you have enough of them that are sprinkled around so they don’t become, you know, cumbersome, and they’re not essentially creating more traffic problems or environmental problems than you already have today.
Gene Tunny 41:49
Yeah, that’s an interesting idea. So would you have several developers? Would several developments use the same off site community garage, so they’d all contribute to the cost of it, or the construction costs, right? Okay?
Kevin Kennon 42:02
And usually, if they’re and just having done my fair share of parking garages, yeah, is that a small paper to build above ground than it is to dig into the ground for just about anything or anywhere? And obviously, if, if the ground consists of bedrock, which is a lot of what New York is, it becomes prohibitively expensive. Interestingly enough, in Manhattan, there are no parking requirements for new building. So Ron sometimes it’s demand, but there’s nothing that says you have to build parking, to build a new building this moment, yeah, gotcha.
Gene Tunny 42:46
Gotcha. Okay, has New York instituted a congestion charge? Is that something that’s coming? It has, yeah, because London has one. How’s that gone? What do you have any thoughts on that?
Kevin Kennon 42:57
Well, somebody who was a pedestrian and a car owner, yeah, and it was in the congested price area. It there’s definitely less traffic. So it’s noticeable. And so I think to some degree, it’s a it’s a good thing. I and so far as I can tell, people aren’t really complaining about it too much. They were a lot beforehand. And I do think the people that penalizes are generally people who, you know, they’re more moderate income, individuals who live outside of the city and are dependent on driving their automobile into the city. But even those people that I know who do that are now parking their cars, but they live in New Jersey, they park it on the other side of the river and then just take the train and from there, and that’s usually five, five to 10
Gene Tunny 44:06
minutes. Yeah, gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Now, just to finish up, I’d like to ask, Have you done any work, or do you have any thoughts on modular housing, for pre fabricated housing that’s seen by some as a bit of a a magic bullet for housing affordability. Is that true? Do you have any thoughts on modular housing, please? Kevin, yeah, okay,
Kevin Kennon 44:31
so there’s two things I want to separate on this. I have a lot of thoughts, and I have studied it extensively, and mostly from an economic perspective. So the problem with modular construction and and, you know, there’s, it’s, it’s certainly come a long way from, you know, what we, I think, in the US tend to have thought of modules being equivalent to mobile. Homes. These are, these are essentially almost complete houses that are fabricated inside of a factory. So the benefits are, you know that your workers can work year round, under control conditions you have theoretically better quality control. The only disadvantage of them, and it’s a big disadvantage, is they have to be able to fit on a lap bed tractor trailer and and typically, they have to be located within a I think it’s, it’s almost like a 300 mile radius from where the factor was. So it actually limits the service area that they can where they can build the the other thing that I like are prefabricated components of housing, which are also delivered on flat beds, but they’re all in packs, and so it’s all the components are sort of stacked, and they’re delivered at the site. There’s a lot more site assembly, but you the range is much longer. The time is actually shorter. And typically, these things go together pretty easily, so you don’t need a ton of skilled labor just to assemble those units. Yeah, yeah, I like the component type of prefabrication better than just the complete modular verification, yeah,
Gene Tunny 46:46
yeah. Gotcha, okay, yeah. Because I think they’re seen as a bit of a Yeah, magic bullet. But yeah, from what my investigation show, that look, they’re not, probably, they’re not going to make the big impact that that you think here in Australia, at least. I think that’s that’s reasonable. One question. There was one more question that just occurred to me that I think I’ll regret not asking you if I don’t ask you, because economists always sort of talking about productivity. And it’s occurred to me that, and it’s occurred to me that the design of workplaces, or the design of of offices, or, I guess factories, is more obvious, how the layout can contribute to productivity. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, how do you how do you think about the design of of buildings, of workspaces to try and improve productivity, is that? Is that top of mind? And also, there’s the new issue of like, how do we get people back to the office? How do we encourage? How do we make people want to come back to the office, given so many people are working from home now, do you have thoughts on that to wrap up, please? Kevin, yeah, no,
Kevin Kennon 47:57
I think, I think people have to lie. And here’s the trend, we all want greater control over our environment period. You know, it doesn’t matter. You know, if you’re at home, you want better control, and we have better technology that, you know, that allows us to do that. I think. You know, if you start from that basis, you don’t need to throw in ping pong tables or coffee bars, or you just need to give people greater sense of control, and that’ll help always help productivity more than anything else.
Gene Tunny 48:32
A greater sense of control got you so does that mean not having, well, providing people with spaces that they can break. They can go to to work on their own, to, yeah, okay, there’s
Kevin Kennon 48:47
that, but also providing them the ability, you know, if there are certain areas, they can control the temperature directly, they don’t have to worry about, I’m in this area, I’m cold, and we’ve got to, we suddenly have to kind of crank up the entire air conditioning, or, you know, for the entire office, that we can actually locate these in different places, anything that allows me to have at least some greater sense of that. Same goes for lighting. Is another thing. How much daylight I have in can I control the sunlight directly around my space. Yeah, my so yeah for myself, or my teams, or whatever that nucleus is, that we’re able to do that, I
Gene Tunny 49:34
have to ask a follow up on the control in the temperature, because this is a perennial problem, because we were in a subtropical climate here in in Brisbane, and we need to use, well, a lot of I mean, we use air conditioning extensively in our commercial and our office buildings. And every office that you tend to go to, there’s an area it’s either too warm or it’s too cold a. It’s almost impossible to to get it right. I don’t know what’s going on. I mean, it just seems to me, it seems to be an intractable, unsolvable problem. But are you saying that there’s a way of designing buildings so you can get that so it can be tweaked, as you were talking about, so people are comfortable? Oh,
Kevin Kennon 50:20
yeah, oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, it’s really just how, how you deliver the various mechanical systems, or in some cases, they can be natural systems. You don’t need a lot of fans and things like that to control it. So there it starts with, fundamentally, how do you design that space? Increasingly, you know, people like being able to say, if it’s on a nice day, open the windows, you know, or have an area where you can sort of flip over the wall and you can just have sort of, you know, a nice summer breeze, you know, coming through your space. That doesn’t always happen in in, you know, humid climates, but I’m sure there are amazing days where you live that, yeah, and wouldn’t that be great if you could just have these, you know, a certain lounge or conference area that you could just open the window. Yeah,
Gene Tunny 51:22
I think we want, yeah, I think that’s a good idea. I’ve just noticed that there are a lot of lot of buildings where, yeah, the air con. I mean, it’s, it’s good. I mean, we need it in in the summer particularly. But you know, sometimes it’s either too cold, it gets too cold, or it gets too too warm, it’s just not doing the job in particular parts of the building, whereas in others, it’s fine. So yeah, but yeah, I’m sure there are ways to engineer, to design around that. Kevin, thanks so much for your time. It’s been terrific. Are there any thoughts, anything you’d like to leave us with, anything you think would have been good to cover in the conversation. Oh no,
Kevin Kennon 52:03
I listen. I This has been a fascinating conversation. And, you know, I think, I think the thing that I’d like to leave your listeners with is hopefully a different understanding of what architects actually do and the the are, are able, you know, we’re able to contribute to a lot of thinking about how to adopt, really, how to sort of imagine the future and and Actually, we have a lot of tools at our disposal to help make all of our lives a little bit better. And I think if we start to understand that that’s a value that we bring, that is not just simply an esthetic value, but basically one in which we can increase things like the topic we were discussing about productivity, or more affordable places to live, and that’s all part and parcel about how we make our future a better place for all of us. Absolutely.
Gene Tunny 53:14
That makes me wonder, I mean, to what extent I suppose that you know, top architects are being dealt into the policy conversations. I have to check. I’m pretty sure they are. But is that what you’re talking about? We need to have architects talking to the policy makers, to the to the bureaucrats, to the politicians, so make sure you’re in your part of the conversation.
Kevin Kennon 53:36
Yeah. I mean, I think that’s I think that’s true. I think you know, we know what, how bureaucrats design our city, not very well. And I think that the misconception about architects is that we just sort of solve spatial problems or esthetic problems. But I think that if you, if you really sort of broaden that and understand that, I think what we do best sometimes is imagine the future. And if that sounds a little utopian, on my part, guilty as char, I think we need a better future.
Gene Tunny 54:12
Yeah, absolutely, I totally agree. Kevin Kenan, thanks so much for your time. Really enjoyed the conversation, learning about your perspective as an architect and talking through a lot of these issues, I think I’ve got some great insights, so I’ll definitely share with with people around around Australia. And yeah, because I think they can get a lot out of them. And yeah, thanks. Thanks again for your time, and look forward to connect with you again in the future.
Kevin Kennon 54:39
Oh, that’d be great. Gene, I’m happy to come back anytime you want me to very
Gene Tunny 54:42
good. Thanks, Kevin, thank you so much. Bye, bye, righto. Thanks for listening to this episode of economics explored. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please get in touch. I’d love to hear from you. You can send me an email via contact at economics explore.com or a voicemail via. Speak pipe. You can find the link in the show notes. If you’ve enjoyed the show, I’d be grateful if you could tell anyone you think would be interested about it. Word of mouth is one of the main ways that people learn about the show. Finally, if your podcasting app lets you, then please write a review and leave a rating. Thanks for listening. I hope you can join me again next week. You
Speaker 2 55:33
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Credits
Thanks to the show’s sponsor, Gene’s consultancy business, www.adepteconomics.com.au. Full transcripts are available a few days after the episode is first published at www.economicsexplored.com. Economics Explored is available via Apple Podcasts and other podcasting platforms.