Kidderminster plans for Bistro, flats, and offices.

I've been looking at the plans for the Bistro+Offices+Flats that was applied for and I'm kind of scratching my head - has anyone actually looked at the plans and imagined how the rooms are going to be utilised?

Here's the ten page PDF doc of the plans Let's start at the bottom and page 1.

Undercroft parking - 14 flats plus a bistro plus 10 offices equals 8 car-parking spaces, oh and a motorcycle/bike section. Sure there's a car-park next to it, but that's already used by the existing businesses. Anyway the bike section is behind slot 1 so anyone using it has to cross the path in front of bays 3, 2, and 1 or pass bay 1 on the side between it and the narrowing retaining wall.

Now let's point to the refuse storage and ask who would want to park in bay 2 and how the rubbish is going to be picked up.

Right now for the offices, very handy for the parking having a door leading out from it, except for the bit about having the store room next to it - remember to keep that door locked folks; fun if you've three businesses one in each office, but no assume one business here. No alarms in the hall because of the lift, unless you can block access to that floor which would please the bistro upstairs (see later). So would the outside door have an alarm or not (disabled access to the lift)?

Next floor, page 2. Bistro bottom right and a servery with what looks like a waiter between it and the store below. Hmm so to get to the store from there I need to go out the door, into what appears to be a shared area, out onto the 'grounds', down the stairs, out into the car-park, cross the exit, and into the store - then reverse that to get back (assuming that downstairs door is locked); well I'm sure the owners will enjoy that little trek.

So bistro - eating, drinking and the toilets are... where exactly? Oh yes see, leave the bistro and cross the grounds into the other shared area then open the door on your right into an office corridor and then onto what appears to be a shared-sex toilet. No wait you can leave the bistro and turn sharp right into the other shared area then the second door on your right and second door on your left. Expect the water feature in the grounds to become an impromptu urinal, actually you can probably expect that anyway.

Besides that whole set-up is weird, both the toilet and kitchen are situated on a corridor with two doors at each end presumably to allow access from the offices, but you've got one office that's accessed by that door. So if that if the two corridor doors are accessible to the public you've got to put signs up and whoever's in that office has to share signage with a toilet sign; um lower rent?

Okay two flats, the only two flat that are accessed from outside the building, no need to bump into the neighbours. I do like the fact the bedroom 2 is next to office; I hope the soundproofing is good.

First floor, page 3. All flats, all accessible only from the interior staircases, interesting that they've been sectioned into two parts. No access from the left to the right, but the right-hand side has the lift, that'll make furniture moving a little easier for them. The top second from the left smells of cramming, their bathroom pushes into the other flat and is right behind the main door while the lounge lacks a door and appears smaller then the flat below/next to it

Second floor, page 4. Three flats all on the right-hand side, thus also accessible via the lift. Inconsistent with the previous floor around the stairs and lift. On the previous floors the stairs have their own door, on this they share space with the lift and that section has it's own door. This is because the walkway from the stairs isn't as long so a door cannot be placed that wouldn't interfere with the exit from the lift. The stores aren't including in this space as before as doing so would mean that the door leading to the shared space interfered with the door into the right-most flat, poor forward planning. Interesting to note that the two left-most flats share a completely blank outer wall (privacy issues?)

Third floor, page 5. Same as the last floor, but with only two flats. Light on the inner/bottom rooms via dormer windows, light on the outer/top via skylights. The right-most flat gets a combination window/balconies instead of a dormer window and as well as a skylight in the other bedroom. Would be interesting to see how much light you get in the those rooms. Oo almost missed this, the left-most flat has a dedicated dining room mm prestigious.

Pages 6 through 10 are elevations and plans; and for those wondering the motto on the fountain is "Honi soit qui mal y pense", which is French for "Shame to him who thinks evil/ill of it", is the motto of the Order of the Garter, and I have no idea why they're putting it on a fountain.