Do you see what I see? (Many would see an empty office. I see a future classroom)

Entire floors could be dedicated to physical education – soft-fall but enough room for half courts for basketball, soccer, gymnastics etc. If outdoor sports is essential, buses take students and coaches to nearby parks and playing fields – just as they do elsewhere in the world. It's very feasible.

This idea logically suits secondary grade office buildings, and those closest to transit hubs (train and bus) will rate best. Conversion to education use will depend on the building and the needs of schools, but will be less costly than office to residential conversion in most cases. If you are faced with the option of building a new vertical school for $100m+ (provided you can find a site) versus buying and refurbishing an existing CBD office building for less, the sums on the surface at least look interesting.

This could also better suit secondary as opposed to primary schools: we seem too protective of our primary school age kids to consign them to school buses or (gasp!) catching the train, but for secondary school age children, catching a train or bus from your suburban home into the city for school is no different to what office workers have done generations before. The entire CBD infrastructure is designed around this hub and spoke model. If there are fewer office workers needing to make this journey now, then why shouldn't students take advantage of generations of investment in public transport networks, and the amenity offered in the CBDs? Plus, there's nothing quite like education to activate a space. And CBDs need activation.

Sure, this isn't something that will be seized on by multiple schools quickly, but I have no doubt it will happen. It's already started in fact. You would be surprised at the number of non-government secondary or special needs education establishments already occupying former office space in and around our CBDs.

If a city region is planning to absorb 1.2 million more people (as is Brisbane) in a relatively short space of time within existing urban boundaries, it needs to do much more than talk about just housing. There's a need for workplaces, for health facilities, and a need for schools (amongst a very much longer list). In our case, potentially 1,000 new schools. Some of that demand will result in much bigger schools in existing locations, and much larger class sizes. And some of that demand might just find its way to a CBD building or two. It only takes a small number of schools to potentially generate demand for tens of thousands of square metres of space.

It's something worth investigating.