Coronavirus

Mock Research Proposal
Coronavirus had redefined the way people now live, work, and socialize. For this reason, people had to strictly follow safety measures so that pandemic ends soon, which has forced them to stay at home and rethink how they should spend their lives with the sources of earning they used to have. The purpose of this report is to propose a method for reusing the office buildings that have been standing empty since the advent of the current pandemic due to increased working from home.
Recently, the pandemic has changed the way our lives operate. A survey of the precious flu spreads in the world conducted in 2016 suggested that virus spreads occur mostly in offices among well-developed strong adults (Richtel, 2020). It has already been predicted that when the pandemic is over, the workers would be allowed to work from home, making the office buildings only the meeting places for clients (Humberd, Salon & Latham, 2020). It is well-established the offices' needed tasks to be completed that can be done online and virtually, though relationships in firms should be retained with one-to-one meetings, especially with clients. Physical proximity to interactions and building mutual trust are revamped in today's world. If office buildings are kept vacant for long, tax revenues would fall, which is needed to pay community servicers like trash pickers or road repairs (Schwan, 2020).
Years before this pandemic arrived, there had been several pieces of research that supported the reuse of empty office buildings. In Fairfax County, Virginia, Washington, the state law had approved the reuse of empty office buildings for living apartments, schools, co-working spaces, or food storage chambers (Fairfax County, 2017). It was proposed that the board's new use should be approved so that they do not disturb the surrounding neighborhood peace and must follow the specific guidelines for the rebuilt or renovation.
However, there are opportunities and risks for converting an office space into a living one. The most feasible solution for transforming the empty office buildings seems its reuse as houses since more low-income citizens find it difficult to search for a new affordable home in Corona times (Day, 2020). The city development, reuse of the abandoned buildings, hard housing market conditions, and sustainability for the reduction in CO2 emissions are the major drivers for the conversion of the empty office buildings into living spaces so that social welfare is maximized (Remoy & Voordt, 2015). Commercial buildings like office constructions could be more feasible for housing since they have conducive open-space or transforming into housing and has low rentals, especially for hard financial times faced by low-income aggregates of the population. The risks include financial feasibility, damage to neighboring structures, functional adaptability of the building itself with its measurements, legal constraints, and the difference in price expectations of the building rentals by the re0developers and the owners. There is little viability for open space that these vacant buildings provide for converting them into housing. It requires a long public process for its conversion, and the appropriateness for plumbing, kitchen, and wooden structures is to be figured out soon (Berg, 2020).
Methodology
The research methodology that I propose for this study would be the case study method. This method would provide investigating the phenomenon within the context of particular exploration. Various data sources would be researched to adopt several lenses for scrutinizing the problem. The empty office buildings and their conversion into the housing apartments can be studied with this research design so that the procedure, the difficulties that are undertaken during the conversion, and challenges the stakeholders, especially the construction parties, owners, and the common public, could be analyzed in real-life scenarios.
Digital technologies have paved the way for researching in almost impossible ways. The obtaining and sharing of information is now possible with digital ethnography, enabling the researchers to collect behavior data with computer and mobile-based methods (Kaur-Gill & Dutta, 2017). The online environments support gathering important data from the respondents involving platforms like blogging, video dairies, and mobile apps. The elimination of geographical boundaries is done through this type of research since it uses the internet and all the other digital technologies for obtaining data on a wide range and locations. The goal of digital ethnography is to study behaviors and attitudes and also the self-identities that are exhibited by individuals on social media forums.
When the two convergent perspectives of the research are explored, the participatory research design is the best methodology. It involves science and practice of the agenda at hand (Bergold & Thomas, 2012). It is established that participatory research gives the direction, possibility, and usefulness for the research that is to be conducted and the creation of its significance. There are numerous research strategies involve in this methodology, which is used for distinct purposes. Since the foundation of this design is the respondents' mandatory participation, the knowledge generation is maximized following the knowledge-gain of social contexts.
Case study research design has undergone several developments due to which this research design can be used under several circumstances and can address research problems for multiple disciplines (Harrison et al., 2017). The changes have been brought through historical approaches and their influence on the researcher's preferences and perspectives. During the early years, it was used for social sciences. In the light of logical positivism, it was deemed skeptical and was heavily criticized. However, with the advent of grounded theory in the 1960s, its application spectrum broadened to education and humanities and social sciences. It is applied to several disciplines and complex issues for gaining credible results and outcomes.
As mentioned earlier, the chosen methodology for studying the issue is the case study research method since it would help identify the previous scenarios that came up when handling the same issue. The stakeholders of similar research in the past would give a clear understanding of how the conversion of empty office buildings would create positivity for the public and the buildings' owners. Having a suitable vacancy for residence and that too at affordable rates remains a constant hardship for any society's citizens. There are various challenges involved in the renovation that would be studied under the case study method. Even case studies encompass interviews with the professionals who were linked with the construction of the emptied office buildings that were now refurbished for public use in the form of housing apartments. The case might be related to another region or country where laws and construction policies might be different. Still, they would give a comprehensive overview of the problem that needs research in current times. The transformation process and architectural changes would be analyzed deeply with case study research. The decisions related to economic and financial feasibility and the community's sustainability afterward would be inspected under this selected research method. The decisions taken to mitigate risks and capitalize on the available resources for building conversions would also be reviewed and examined for applying them in the current research.
Method
Observation is a type of qualitative research that the researchers use to observe the participants directly for understanding their behaviors and interactions in real-life circumstances. There are two observation approaches for collecting first-hand data: participant observation and in-person observation (Paterson, Bottorf & Hewat, 2003). The participant observation is for connecting to culturally-contexted social processes to record participants' reactions to the naturally occurring incidents. Video-recording can also be used for this purpose; however, it should be with the participants' consent so that they are ensured that their private information would not be leaked without their knowledge and are comfortable in sharing their reactions.
The most commonly known type of qualitative research is the interview. It has its advantages and challenges. There are structured or semi-structured interviews to analyze data in-depth by giving a respondent choice for the response (Jamshed, 2014). The unstructured interview is thought of as a casual conversation between the interviewer and the interviewee since it tends to get the interviewer's answers. It can be considered biased unless it is informal, which involves conversation without having a fixed set of questions. The flow of information keeps on incoming that can be diverse.
Cultural probes are an interesting way of collecting data from the respondents. They are provided with some items such as cameras, diaries, maps, and other related materials suitable for the research with a guideline of tasks and how to conduct them (Thoring, Luippold & Mueller, 2013). They are taken home or to research by the participants, and they complete the given tasks. Afterward, they are returned to the researcher the same day or a day after. The basic advantage of this research method is that the researcher does not need to be present at the inspection time. Still, it involves combining other methods such as interviews and observation in a private setting so that the practicality of the data collected with the cultural probe items could be interpreted better.
Recently, workshops have been in use extensively since they use participants' creative abilities, like in the design process, to achieve something they are interested in (Orngreen & Levinsen, 2017). The purpose is also to get the desired results for the research issue so that reliability is also obtained with the help of valid data.
The selected case and its proposed research design would not require observation and interviews since behaviors are not analyzed. The choice of study at hand would also not include cultural probes and workshops since the participants' creativity is not be gauged for the issue presented here. The participants' innovation and interests are not the objectives of the study; however, the feasibility of the making of housing in place of empty office buildings is to be examined. Since it is anticipated that after Corona, employees are more likely to pursue working from homes or use the buildings very less for client meetings, the suitable purpose for those buildings is to be found. The analysis of behaviors or measuring the participants' innovative and adaptive capabilities is not the aim here. The challenges, risks, opportunities, and outcomes for converting empty office buildings into houses are to be examined, which is the requirement of post-pandemic times. Since the case study method is chosen, maximum variation sampling would help get a broader understanding of the problem from various global perspectives. Important common patterns would be determined by selecting varied cases for a simplified analysis (Palinkas et al., 2016).
Discussion and Conclusion
The research proposal is to find the best possible way to reuse the office buildings that have been standing empty since the pandemic's arrival. By conducting preliminary literature research, it has been analyzed that employees are happier by staying and home and working remotely. Some want to go back, but the others corroborate that buildings' use should be minimized to only client meetings and tasks should be done home online. Moreover, it has been deduced that the best possible way to reutilize those buildings is to convert them into housing apartments since the low-income groups would gain the most benefit out f. if the empty buildings are kept useless, they will bring a downfall in tax collection, which is used for social welfare purposes. Bringing them into use again would create a maximum advantage for the citizens; however, there are risks and challenges. These would be studied with the help of a case study research methodology with maximum variation sampling. The case study method would involve examining real-life cases related to the same issue in the past. They would involve interviews, another qualitative research methodology, which would help gain in-depth knowledge by combining two or more research methodologies. With maximum variation, the variety of cases from different contexts and geographical locations would help identify the common themes related to issues, challenges, and benefits related to the topic selected for research.
The proposed study's limitations might include obtaining diversified cases online since some websites do not give access to certain locations worldwide. Full articles are not downloaded that would give deeper insights into the risks and opportunities of the problem. Also, some of the cases might be outdated, for which the information would be old, such as that related to construction and financial policies of those times that are no more relevant to the current era.
The future alternatives and direction of this research would be useful for the governments and the construction companies since the end of the pandemic would provide a new roadmap for utilizing facilities and resources in a fresh form. The directions that were unthinkable during the very last year and now contemplated seriously since the future have been drastically changed by Covid-19 worldwide. The local and international policies have to be altered to take novel decisions, such as reusing empty office buildings.
References
Berg, N. (2020, July 17). Coronavirus had emptied out office buildings. Could they help solve the housing crisis? Fast Company. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/90528263/coronavirus-has-emptied-out-office-buildings-could-they-help-solve-americas-housing-crisis
Bergold, J. & Thomas, S. (2012). Participatory research methods: A methodological approach in motion. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 13(1).  http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1201302
Day, N. (2020, July 29). Unused buildings will make good housing in the world of Covid-19. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/unused-buildings-will-make-good-housing-in-the-world-of-covid-19-142897
Fairfax County. (2017, December 6). Converting empty office buildings into new uses. Retrieved from https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/news2/converting-empty-office-buildings-into-new-uses/
Harrison, H., Birjs, M., Franklin, R. & Mills, J. (2017). Case study research: Foundations and methodological orientations. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 18(1). http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1701195.
Humberd, B. Salon, D. & Latham, S.F. (2020, July 24). The office is dead! Long live the office in a post-pandemic world. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/the-office-is-dead-long-live-the-office-in-a-post-pandemic-world-138499
Jamshed, S. (2014). Qualitative research method- interviewing and observation. Journal of Basic and Clinical Pharmacy, 5(4), 87-88. DOI: 10.4103/0976-0105.141942
Kaur-Gill, S. & Dutta, M.J. (2017). Digital ethnography. In C.S. Davis & R.F. Potter. The international encyclopedia of communication research methods (pp. 1-10). New Jersey: Wiley.
Orngreen, R. & Levinsen, K. (2017). Workshops as a research methodology. The Electronic Journal of e-Learning, 15(1), 70-81.
Palinkas, L.A., Horwitz, S.M., Green, C.A., Wisdom, J.P., Duan, N., & Hoagwood, K. (2016). Purposeful sampling for qualitative data collection and analysis in mixed method implementation research. Administration and Policy in Mental Health, 42(5), 533-544. DOI: 10.1007/s10488-013-0528-y
Paterson, B.L., Bottorf, J.L. & Hewat, R. (2003). Blending observational methods: Possibilities, strategies, and challenges. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 2(1), 29-38. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690300200103
Remoy, H. & Voordt, T. (2014). Adaptive use of office buildings: Opportunities and risks of conversion into housing. Building Research and Information, 42(3), 381-390.
Richtel, M. (2020, May 4). The pandemic may mean the end of the open-floor office. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/health/coronavirus-office-makeover.html
Schwan, H. (2020, September 12). Pandemic brings commercial pause. Milford Daily News. Retrieved from https://www.milforddailynews.com/story/business/real-estate/2020/09/12/will-office-buildings-become-ghost-towns-because-people-will-continue-to-work-from-home-experts-disa/42892117/
Thoring, K., Luippold, C. & Mueller, R.M. (2013). Opening the cultural probes box: A critical reflection and analysis of the cultural probes method [Paper presentation]. 5th International Congress of International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR), Tokyo, Japan. 252627658_Opening_the_Cultural_Probes_Box_A_Critical_Reflection_and_Analysis_of_the_Cultural_Probes_Method