Fire Station 27

Focus and Flight

At their core fire stations are organized around a single number: response time. This number forms the foundation for all other aspects of life in a station, from training to eating, working out, showering and even sleeping. Every single activity is guided by how quickly a firefighter can get from the task at hand to an emergency. Using this idea as the guide, this project examines how “lines of flight” physically manifest as an organizing principle for the architecture of a station. Starting with diagrams closely examining the paths of trucks to and from their bays, and ending with the path from the firefighters beds to their trucks, this station overlays a network of paths from every element of a firefighters life. Drawing on these diagrams (above, top right) the architectural form becomes the physical manifestation of these lines of flight.

Construction and Representation

This project was developed primarily through the use of two dimensional diagrams and the construction, destruction, and reconstruction of physical models. After each iteration, the model was marked up by hand, pulled apart, and reassembled such that the next model could reflect these new changes. Often these models were constructed directly on printed and revised diagrams to be able to fine tune the relationship between the physical architecture and guiding principles. As such, the final representation relied heavily on diagrams and model images rather than conventional architectural drawings (plans, sections, elevations). While these were produced, they did not steer the development of the project.