What else bugs you about new and new-ish building designs?

w12ee3e

It might just be me but I absolutely loathe the design of placing two front doors right besides each another. Why do they keep doing that? What is the rationale behind that? Usually you see this joke on terraces and/or semi's. It seems the architects are making the presumption that both neighbours are going to want to maximise the opportunity to see each other coming in and out so the wives can of course catch up with the latest gossip about each others husbands (as if we're all married or coupled up by default whatever/maximum cringe factor) etc etc. IMO most people want to be left alone and be not be 'forced' at see each other at ever given opportunity. Who gives the house builders to try forfeit people's privacy any more than putting windows in the party-walls?

Usually the said buildings have walls no thicker than a 3mm sheet of plywood so when little Tommy is crying again at 2.30 AM you'll be sure to hear it too.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/122787599#/?channel=RES_BUY

Doozergirl

w12ee3e said:

It might just be me but I absolutely loathe the design of placing two front doors besides on another. Why do they keep doing that? What is the rationale behind that? Usually you see this joke on terraces and/or semi's. It seems the architects are making the presumption that both neighbours are going to want to maximise the opportunity to see each other coming in and out where the wives can catch up with the latest gossip about each others husbands (as if we're all married or coupled up by default whatever/maximum cringe factor) etc etc. IMO most people want to be left alone and be not be 'forced' at see each other at ever given opportunity. Who gives the house builders to try and impose people on one another any more than putting windows in the party-walls?

Usually the said buildings have walls no thicker than a 3mm sheet of plywood.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/122787599#/?channel=RES_BUY

There is logic though.  By putting them that way around it means that the stairs and circulation areas are joined rather than living rooms.   

Greeting your neighbour on the odd occasion that you leave/arrive at the same time is less inconvenient than listening to them constantly because your living areas are attached.  

UnderOffer

Hmmm, with the doors together does that mean the stair cases then run together side by side? Does this help with noise transference as both your lounges are on other side of stair case and in theory you don’t share an internal wall, as for example you are not sitting with both yours and your neighbours sofas back to back. 

I always thought that was a reasonable design, you really aren’t going to spend all day watching the front door, yes you might coincidentally arrive or leave at same time, but with the example you gave, windows are quite small so views to neighbour limited. 

Flugelhorn

agree re stairs and hallways being next to each other - good move

my beef is the open plan nature of may ground floors, I know it is a personal thing but I prefer separate rooms - bought new house with separate  Kitchen breakfast room / dining room / sitting room and hallway - unlike others locally where you have go through the sitting  room to get everywhere else

diego_94

The general bad quality a shoddiness of the builds is a bug bear of mine. 

ABFG

Much like Flugelhorn I can't stand the excessive open plan, mostly to do with kitchens. So many places had the kitchen as one wall of a very big open plan kitchen/living room/dining room. Far better to have a separate kitchen and separate larger living room/dining area, or if space allows a kitchen diner with separate living space.

Also commercial office buildings or massive city centre blocks of flats that are vast expanses of glass instead of walls. They all look the same and are hideous. I wonder if in future years they will be thought of as 'period features' having all that glass, like wooden beams or decorative brick work.

ProDave

If you are going to pick apart that particular house I would add:

Clearly the front of the house is north facing.  So why put the living room at the front where it will never get any sun and the kitchen at the back?  I would want the kitchen at the front and living room at the back with a nice big set of patio doors onto the garden.  The real issue here is builders stamp out standard designs with little or no thought how they fit onto the plot and build the same house on different direction plots. sometimes it works sometimes it does not.

I don't like the (almost) no front garden and don't get me started on the tiny back gardens.

At least that one, because of the retaining wall, has a tall fence around the garden so is a lot less overlooked than many others.

freesha

Small bedrooms - for example, 4 beds (2 with ensuite) plus a family bathroom. Just have 3 bigger bedrooms and only one ensuite.

Spreadsheetman

Flugelhorn said:

agree re stairs and hallways being next to each other - good move

my beef is the open plan nature of may ground floors, I know it is a personal thing but I prefer separate rooms - bought new house with separate  Kitchen breakfast room / dining room / sitting room and hallway - unlike others locally where you have go through the sitting  room to get everywhere else

My old 1930s semi had the opposite design with hall/staircases at the outside ends. Meant I could hear my neighbours listening to the telly in their bedroom when I was trying to get to sleep. I wouldn't have it that way again.

I agree on the excessive open-plan thing, although I don't mind a good-sized kitchen-diner instead of a separate dining room.

I really like to have a utility room to get things like the washing machine out of the kitchen and provide a bit of a buffer to the outside world when the weather is bad.

Section62

w12ee3e said:

It might just be me but I absolutely loathe the design of placing two front doors right besides each another. Why do they keep doing that? What is the rationale behind that?

Ultimately it is a consequence of trying to cram as large a house as possible onto the tiniest sliver of land.

Ramouth

For me it is the lack of thermal mass.  Yes all that insulation keeps you nice and warm in the winter but it’s so hard to keep cool in the summer!  Our bedroom is in the timber framed extension to a stone cottage and I am already finding it a bit warm at night.  May have to move into the spare room for the summer!