Norman Foster has called for a relaxation of rules governing the use of commercial buildings to allow more offices to be repurposed as housing in post-pandemic cities.

Laying out his vision for how urban centres will look in the post-covid world, the Foster & Partners founder said that office buildings abandoned by home workers could become the “residential tower[s] of the future”.

In the UK the use of buildings is governmed by the use class system, while in Europe it is more commonly controlled by the zoning of areas for different uses.

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