In the three years I've been playing around with comic layouts, I've found out that layouts like this one:
work just fine as long as the bottom scene isn't something spoilery or focused in unexpected actions. If it's just panels of people exchanging dialogues then it's fine, since it respects the natural order of reading anyways.
Another important thing to keep in mind: your style of drawing matters when choosing your layout. If you have a cartoonish style with thick lines, then you can even have four panels on the same row, as long as they're just faces and don't include small details and your font size is big and clear enough.
So basically:
-Cartoonish style and thicker lines allow you to make smaller panels.
-More realistic styles and thin/delicate lineart look better in bigger panels.
And also:
-Keep in mind what you are going to draw on each panel before drawing your layout. Closeups with no action other than facial expression don't really need big panels. When you're drawing a comic that has long scenes of dialogue, more panels is better. That way you don't drag the conversation endlessly and you can cut the text in smaller chunks. Long dialogue in comics always "breathes" better when distributed in lots of speech balloons and panels. Huge panels with a single speech balloon with a whole monologue inside are a big no.
And the last thing, but really important imho:
-In vertical format, height space is usually perceived by the brain as time. If you want the scene to "last" longer, make it, well, longer. Thick white gutters between single panels are preferred.
If you have the time, check a comic called "Family man" on Line Webtoons. Whether you like the story and art or not (it's a bit TOO dramatic for my tastes), the narration flows really slowly because of the layout it uses and it's really interesting to analyze.
That was my little grain of sand, I hope it helps