Help required with the 'design' of a retail and hospitality building.

[Dungrange]

I’m planning on using the DPM H0 scale modular parts to construct a relatively large (by model railway standards) six-storey high building that will most likely comprise two retail units and a budget hotel.  I currently envisage that the ground floor will comprise two retail units and the hotel entrance / reception.  The first floor will provide space for the hotel restaurant and some retail space, whilst the hotel bedrooms will be located on floors four to six.

 

I have a reasonably good idea as to what the front (street facing) façade should look like, but what the details to the rear of the building should look like is a bit less clear.  I’ve been trying to envisage floor plans for each floor to determine where best to place windows and internal walls (as I want to add lights to some of the rooms).  However, this highlights my ignorance of facilities management.  As such, I’m wondering is anyone can answer any of the following questions in general terms.

 

Small Retail Unit (circa 3,000 ft2 – all on ground floor)

1.    How much of this area would be ‘front of house’ and how much would be storage, offices and staff welfare facilities?

2.    Would deliveries require a separate entrance to the rear, or would deliveries for this size of retail outlet typically be made through the shop front?

 

Medium Retail Unit (circa 6,000 ft2 spread over two floors – Ground and first floor)

1.    Again, what proportion of this larger store would be ‘front of house’ and how much would be storage, offices and staff welfare facilities?  Would this proportion vary with the size of the retail unit?

2.    I’m assuming there would need to be a lift within the store for customer use (to comply with the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)) but would this same lift also be used to move goods from the storeroom (assuming it is on the ground floor) to the upper floor?

3.    Assuming a lift or lifts are required, does this mean that space would be required on the second floor (ie within the space I’m allocating to hotel bedrooms) to accommodate whatever is located at the top of the lift shaft?

4.    Again, would deliveries require a separate entrance to the rear, or could deliveries still be made through the shop front for this larger unit?

 

Budget Hotel (60 -70 bedrooms spread over four floors with separate restaurant on first floor)

1.    I’m working on the assumption that there will be around 17 bedrooms per floor with effectively the same floor plan for each floor.  However, how much ‘non-public’ space would be required on each floor for operational reasons?  Would there be a need for a ‘housekeeping room’ on each floor and if so, how large would this room be?

2.    How large would a restaurant need to be (in square feet) for a hotel with this number of bedrooms?  Is there any guidance?

3.    How large would the restaurant kitchen need to be relative to the dining area?

4.    How many toilets would be required for diners?

 

My planned restaurant, restaurant kitchens and toilets would probably be about 3,500 ft2 in total, but I could make this bigger at the expense of first floor retail space in my Medium Retail Unit.

 

Roof

I’m currently working on the assumption that this will be a flat roof building, albeit there will need to be a gentle slope for drainage, and I assume that this will slope from front to rear, so that down pipes would be located on the rear rather than the front of the building.  However, I assume that I will need a ‘seventh floor’ that provides access to the roof space (for maintenance) and to house the equipment to operate the hotel lifts.  What sort of height would be required to accommodate the equipment that sits above the top floor of the lift shaft?

 

Stairwells and Emergency Exits

I assume that I will need more than one stairwell in the building (I’ll probably have three), but how small can I make these stairwells?

 

If anyone can provide any guidance on these questions, that would be great.  Obviously, my building is just a scenic detail, so doesn’t need to be 100% accurate, but I’d like to create a broadly believable floor plan before I start construction.

Edited October 25, 2019 by Dungrange

[JSModels]

David,

 

Let me start by saying I'm not an expert on this, but I have some design experience & have stayed in inumerable Premier Inns over the years, so am familiar with their layout from that perspective!

 

On the retail side, I would say that the rear of house would account for 40-50% of the total floorspace. Deliveries would always be via a separate entrance, never through the front doors. For the larger, 2-storey building, there should be a separate goods lift, as well as a customer lift. This all assumes that it's a purpose-built, relatively new building.

 

On the hotel side - each room needs to have a window to the outside, which obviously means they can only be located around the edge of the building. If you take a look at this example, the Premier Inn in Halifax, you'll see that the upper portion of the building is 'L' shaped, to maximise the 'outside wall to floorspace' ratio, thus ensuring as much money-generating as possible in the given footprint. The only things that would be located in the 'core' of the building, away from the outside walls, would be the lift shafts, and the housekeeping room (and yes, there would be one of these on each & every floor, but they're really small; I'd say 100-200 sq ft max). In this particular hotel, the emergency stairwell is on the corner of the building, and is highlighted by the 5-storey high glazing on this corner.

 

In terms of the restaurant side, I have no clue whatsoever, but I'd guess (and it is just a guess) that you'd be looking at around 25% of the total area for kitchen, walk-in fridge, toilets, and staff rooms (including a manager's office, too).

 

That hotel in Halifax that I've used as an example is probably reasonably close to the size of the one you're looking for, though the PI website doesn't state how many rooms it has. The design of it is also constrained by the fact that it's on a sloping site, so the retail portion (Beefeater restaurant) is effectively one-sided, and buried into the hillside. FWIW this is the delivery door for the restaurant, on the floor above - I'd guess there's a goods lift to get stuff down to the restaurant level in there.

 

The best thing to do with anything like this is to find a prototype. With the quality of Google maps now, particularly now the buildings are rendered in 3D in most towns & cities, it should be quite easy to find all the details you need. You don't need to build a carbon-copy of any particular building, but a real-world example will help you to make yours realistic. Even the roof details!

 

Hope that helps, 

 

JRB

[JSModels]

As an addition to the above, here are some of the plans, still available on the Calderdale Council Planning Portal.

 

Here's the second floor hotel plan, showing that there's 19 rooms per floor:

 

 

And the restaurant plan:

 

 

This shows the entrance lobby and reception area for the hotel too, and all the associated offices, luggage & electrical rooms, etc. You can see the offices/toilets, kitchen etc. for the restaurant. I'd say the front-of-house for the restaurant is only around 40% of the total floorspace.

 

It also confirms the goods lift to get deliveries down from the higher street level at the back (in the bottom left corner of the drawing).

 

JRB

Edited October 26, 2019 by jrb

[Dungrange]

JRB,

 

Thanks for these details.  The building you have highlighted seems to have five floors of bedrooms and 20 bedrooms per floor, so a 100 bedroom hotel.  That's a little bigger than I have in mind, but is in the right ball park.  The bedroom floor plan is more or less what I had in mind for my building (ie L-shaped), except I was going to locate the lifts and main stairwell in the 'core' of the building where the plan above shows a 'store' and 'non-standard bedroom'.  I quickly identified that this part of the building (about the size of a bedroom) wouldn't have any windows.  However, just looking at the area of the stairwells, lift shafts and waiting area for the lifts, I may need to lose a bedroom from my floor plan or increase the building footprint slightly to devote a bit more space to stairs and lifts.

 

Interestingly, the placement of the linen cupboard adjacent to the corner room explains how to gain access to the corner room, which was something that I was unsure about.  I think that addresses all of my issues with the design of the upper floors.

 

With regards the lower levels, the Premier Inn floor plan above for the reception, restaurant and administration areas is all on one floor.  I was intending splitting this over two floors - but it's clear from above that the combined area of these facilities is at least 50% greater than the area of a bedroom floor.  As such, I will clearly either have to reduce the area on the ground floor that can be occupied by shops (to accommodate hotel admin functions), lose the upper floor of the 'Medium Retail Unit' or expand out the back.  I may have to look at a combination of these, but will give it some thought.

 

One 'problem' with the DPM Modular pieces is that being American and of brick construction, with pilasters to join the panels together, is that it's not really 'traditional' Scottish architecture.  Brick buildings in central Scotland are somewhat less common than in some other parts of the UK, but the Dakota Hotel in Glasgow is a similar enough architectural style to the DPM modules that I'm willing to use these.  It's also 'city centre', albeit not adjacent to the railway station, which is where my hotel will be.  The roof of the Glasgow Dakota Hotel as a small 'building' where I was intending to assume that my lifts and stairwells are located, so I assumed that these facilities might be located in this building at the same location.  However, I note on the Premier Inn building that you highlight in Halifax that there is nothing above where the lifts as shown in the plan, so it looks as though the height of this access 'building' can be quite small (ie the lift winding gear can be accommodated within the top floor ceiling to building roof height.  The roof of the Premier Inn building that you highlight seems to have access from what is labelled on the bedroom floor plan as 'services room and kitchen duct'.  However, I do notice a significant area of the roof seems to be covered with what I assume is air conditioning units.  Anyway, the design of the roof details is a long way off.  I need to finalise the building footprint first.

 

Many Thanks for your input.

Edited October 26, 2019 by Dungrange

[grahame]

I think you might be over complicating and over thinking the building with the need to 'design' the internal accommodation, outside details, etc.. Base your model building on a similar real one and it will have the necessary layout, window positions, roof mounted equipment, and so on. You can adjust any internal/external layout if necessary and the elevations and roof details should be visible on Google maps where you can zoom in to individual buildings and effectively fly around them.

[Dungrange]

I realise that there are many talented modellers such as yourself who can scratch-build a great representation of an actual building from photographs.  However, in my case I have 260 pieces of plastic that have been removed from their sprues and any flash removed (and I'll have a few more once the postman delivers my next order).  I then effectively have a plastic 'kit' without any 'instructions' showing what goes where. 

 

At the moment, my building looks like this:

 

Ultimately, the East Elevation of the building will look something like the layout below.

 

Retail unit on the base and bedrooms on the top.  Looking at the 'Cornice' it seems that this is suitable for getting an extra bit of ceiling height in the first floor, which I was planning would be the restaurant on the North Elevation, but First Floor Retail space on this elevation.

 

However, looking at the floor plan for the Premier Inn in Halifax, it would appear that the seating area of the restaurant covers an area that is perhaps the size of 13 bedrooms, with the toilets taking up the same sort of area as another two bedrooms.  Kitchens and non-public areas probably add up to the area of another 10 bedrooms and the reception, lobby, lifts and main stairs probably add up to the area of another eight bedrooms.   As such, I think most of my first floor will have to be allocated to the hotel rather than retail purposes and therefore I may change the window style to reflect the different purpose, which I think might help with the aesthetics: there seems to be too many very large windows in the building at the moment.  Anyway, I'm still 'working' on that at the moment.

[Dungrange]

On 25/10/2019 at 16:44, jrb said:

On the retail side, I would say that the rear of house would account for 40-50% of the total floor space. Deliveries would always be via a separate entrance, never through the front doors. For the larger, 2-storey building, there should be a separate goods lift, as well as a customer lift. This all assumes that it's a purpose-built, relatively new building.

 

When I was in my local model shop last week I thought I'd ask how the space through the back of the shop compared to the front of shop area.  The answer I got was that there wasn't a lot of space behind the back wall of the shop, but that the stockroom is in a basement, which is bigger than the shop.  I think this is therefore my 'get out': I assume that my retail units have basements, which means that I only need to model enough back of house space to facilitate access to a basement.  In the case of my local model shop deliveries are apparently always made via the front / shop door but then it's a much smaller retail unit than I was envisaging.  That said, although I don't work in a true 'city centre' location, there seems to be many more small retail units than there are large ones, so I perhaps need to think about smaller businesses on my ground floor.

[Campaman]

Some of the smaller shops in our local town centre literally only have a storage cupboard, staff toilet and cloakroom out the back, 99% of the stock is on the shop floor with deliveries being made 2-3 times a week to re-stock.