Adaptive reuse
Recent weeks have brought a new normal — social distancing, hand washing and, most transformatively of all, governmental mandates to stay home except for essential outings. For many, working from home has meant changing guest rooms into conference rooms, kitchen tables into computer tables and empty corners into corner offices.
And many people, even those who thought they couldn't do their work from home, are managing. Engineers, librarians, architects, teachers, artists, counselors and CEOs — are freeing up space to set up a makeshift workstation with the comforts of an office.
"I'm actually in my mom's old office," said insurance broker Shelby Wadsworth who lives in Florida but has just opened an office in Fultonville, Montgomery County, and is staying with her parents in Amsterdam. "She was an interior designer and the room was her photo album, arts and crafts area. We have armoires with photo albums and her desk is piles of photos. I organized it, put her stuff in boxes and am setting up my laptop and my paperwork."
She said she's using more phone apps to scan and fax so that she doesn't need to run to her office. She teleconferences with clients via the video meeting platform Zoom and keeps the home office looking neat by selecting a virtual backdrop in the digital meeting room.
"I can green screen like a library," Wadsworth said. "But it's definitely changed how I do business. I usually meet people in person. It's a personable business. It's hard to create a personal relationship virtually or over the phone. It's very tough. I don't get the same feedback. It's easy for someone to hide behind a computer screen. When I'm with someone it's easy to see when someone doesn't understand something. Now when I ask does anyone have any questions, no one answers."
That distance can be especially worrisome to licensed...