I think I'll start this series of articles very subjectively, by sharing my opinion about an apartment in a building being constructed on the land where I used to play as a child. There was also a walnut tree here that seemed enormous, because of which I had black hands at the start of every school year; obviously, I had business with the walnuts still dressed in their green, iodine-rich coat at the beginning of September. The irony is that the walnut tree dried up just before the bulldozer entered the site. Don't get me wrong – it's not like someone poured something life-shortening on its roots so they could do their job; walnut trees are a protected species and you can't just cut them down however you please.
And I said at the beginning that I would be subjective because this whole story won't affect those who will live here – other things will influence their daily life, and those are the reasons why we're writing these articles.
I will only comment on the apartment that appears on the construction site fence, probably the most notable (since you don't brag about your worst) among the many apartment typologies in this building. I went on the developer's website to look for information and the first thing served to me was: 3-BEDROOM APARTMENT, Usable Area – 63.17 sqm. Of course, I started checking by adding up all the room areas. And what do you know?! The information is wrong. In fact, the Usable Area includes the balcony area, which is not compliant with the law. The irony is that a 3-bedroom apartment with minimal areas should have 66 sqm, so even with this marketing trick, the apartment is still non-compliant.
The big problem is with the "LIVING ROOM + KITCHEN = 19.20 sqm" character. For a 3-bedroom apartment, according to the Housing Law, the living room should have 18 sqm, the dining area 3 sqm, and the kitchen 5.50 sqm, so "LIVING ROOM + KITCHEN = 19.20 sqm" should have been "LIVING ROOM + KITCHEN = 26.50 sqm", because if you're a developer and you "agree" not to build walls between certain functions, their areas must be added together, not cancelled out. In this case, a so-called kitchen and dining area were crammed into the living room, without adding their areas.
A direct relationship – without walls – between these three functions: living room, dining area, and kitchen can be valid, but here it's not resolved correctly, and from this resolution, the only one who will suffer is the one who signs the purchase contract – the happy person who will be glad they no longer have to rent or live with their parents, even though they're over 30 and have at least one child, or plans in that direction.
And if I close my eyes to the wall angles that create spaces almost impossible to furnish and to the structural system, which is so present that I realize the architect and structural engineer didn't really see each other, didn't really like each other, and I accept that the other spaces could function, this "LIVING ROOM + KITCHEN" simply cannot work. From the ridiculous entrance, with your nose in the side of a refrigerator, which if it's also open because you have to arrange the food containers in alphabetical order, you can only enter by climbing over the sofa, or going around the ring road through the master bedroom and balcony until you reach the living room, and ending with that attempt at a kitchen, everything is a hodgepodge. I call it an attempt at a kitchen because the preparation counter is almost non-existent and poorly positioned – not for nothing is it presented with some flower pots – it's ornamental, so you can't really prepare anything edible in this dwelling, maybe just tea and some boiled eggs. Anyway, you don't want to open the refrigerator and block the entrance or enjoy the smells of cooked food impregnated in the sofa where you want to lounge with a book in hand or stare at the TV. There's no space between the stove and sink, so accidents involving water and fire are excluded. Even that trace of counter where you can arrange food on a plate before going to the table (obviously in front of the TV) can't be used all the time – if you want to keep the balcony door open, you can forget about the counter because it will be hidden behind the door.
Delving deeper into the wonder of the plan, I have a revelation and realize that the apartment was probably designed to be a two-bedroom, and following the developer's "insistence," it was transformed into a three-bedroom apartment without a kitchen.
Maybe they thought they were offering too much luxury, or too many top-notch amenities.
