Cities across the US are struggling to fill their office spaces. Major cities like Washington DC, Boston, and San Francisco have increasingly vacant downtowns, while the urban centers of small Rust Belt cities struggle to survive altogether. This trend is consistent beyond the US, with over three-quarters of Europe’s office buildings at risk of obsolescence by the decade’s end. The cause of this, in most cases, is simple: an oversupply of offices and a shift towards remote work. These vacant buildings can trigger a negative domino effect of economic and social challenges for cities, and their surplus, coupled with a housing shortage, has sparked discussions among cities and architects about the impending necessity to transform offices into housing.

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In September of this year, New York City experienced a severe storm that inundated its streets with more than 7 inches of rain in less than 24 hours, causing a number of roads to close, cars to submerge, and buses to get trapped. This event again highlighted the city's old infrastructure's inability to handle fast and heavy rainfall. As climate change intensifies, experts warn that such extreme weather events will become increasingly frequent. This vulnerability is especially concerning in densely populated urban areas such as New York City, where flooding risks increase due to the large amounts of impervious surfaces.