Central Square

How about something like this, plenty of space and nice and airey.

what a good design! That has more than 14 bus stands though!

I think "dynamic" stands means that there is no assigned bus stand to particular services. Instead a bus comes into a free stand and there is an announcement about where passengers should go (hence the airport-style concourse), with waiting areas.

The idea is that rather than parking up for extended periods of time, buses pull in just to allow passengers to get on and get off so they spend no more than a few minutes there. If each bus takes 4 minutes for loading and unloading and allow 2 minutes for buses to pull in and out, that would allow 10 buses per stand per hour, and hence 140 buses. Now if National Express were to use 2 stands, that would come down to 120 regular buses. And maybe 6 National Express services an hour. So I think its feasible to have a good number of bus services use the station. I think I saw some actual figures before but cannot seem to find them?

Also, if its only 120,000 square feet of office space in the Interchange, it looks like it can't be a home for HMRC - which is looking for more like 300,000 square feet. If so its not surprising. At central square its probably more valuable to go for smaller private sector occupiers for some office space, and then resi or hotel use. Makes things more open for JR Smart At John St - Callaghan Square.

BTW I don't like the design of the upper floors. Look at page 19 in the appendix. This is the western elevation (i.e. from Central Square / Marland Street). It lacks any symmetry. The main interchange building on the ground and first floor is something of a podium for the office building and residential buildings at either end. The office building is straight on top of the podium but looks a little squat given its size (it could be higher in my view). The residential building sits on top of some struts so there is a void between it and the 'podium'. And in between the residential and office building there is an area where there is nothing above the interchange 'podium'.

I think it looks like a rather uncomfortable composition. I'm wondering if they are trying to echo some form of idealised 1950s or 1960s modernism. These sometimes had quite jarring designs like this. Now it might work if it is done in the highest quality materials and is maintained very well. But if its not we'll just end up with the problems of 50s and 60s buildings again...

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local ... e-11923910

New design - now less curvy

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/cardiff-bus-station-central-square-11923910

New design - now less curvy

Less curvy, less interesting, less ambitious... More likely to get built?

BTW I don't like the design of the upper floors. Look at page 19 in the appendix. This is the western elevation (i.e. from Central Square / Marland Street). It lacks any symmetry. The main interchange building on the ground and first floor is something of a podium for the office building and residential buildings at either end. The office building is straight on top of the podium but looks a little squat given its size (it could be higher in my view). The residential building sits on top of some struts so there is a void between it and the 'podium'. And in between the residential and office building there is an area where there is nothing above the interchange 'podium'.

I think it looks like a rather uncomfortable composition. I'm wondering if they are trying to echo some form of idealised 1950s or 1960s modernism. These sometimes had quite jarring designs like this. Now it might work if it is done in the highest quality materials and is maintained very well. But if its not we'll just end up with the problems of 50s and 60s buildings again...

Me neither. That's unambitious in my view and shows they haven't got enough
interest in the office space, residential space or the hotel.

It's a bit frustrating really, but I'm not surprised.

That genuinely looks shit. What a complete joke. What's the point in provisional designs if they're just going to shit all over them? Did they hire Foster to just design the promotional images or something? I'm extremely disappointed.

I agree, very disappointing. You’d hope with F+P that the build quality at least will be of the highest order, but design wise it’s incredibly unambitious and, worse, ugly. I’ve never actually commented on a planning application before, but I’m tempted to with this one. I tend to agree with the view that the bus station is not well future-proofed either. For such a prominent site and the length of time this has been in the making it would be a terrible missed opportunity to mess this up.

Time to go back to the drawing board with this I think. Hopefully the council question the design changes, since all were led to believe it would look much better than this 1970s crap.