Burning Design
Will anyone fight to save this fire station from being torn down in 50 years?
Oklahoma City Fire Station 37, built in 1996, Oklahoman Archives
I’ve been thinking more about the city’s decision to build a new fire station at the east entrance to Bricktown. Old Downtown Guy suggests we shouldn’t be trying to mimick designs of stations of decades past – but rather come up with a new design that still complements the area.
So here are some stations that caught my eye cruising the Internet. The first one, shown above, is located in Ashland, Oregon, and is clearly the pride of the community. The story below is from the city’s web site:
Ashland Fire & Rescue Station #1
Owners: City of Ashland – Keith Woodley, Fire Chief/Project Manager
Architects: Peck Smiley Ettlin Architects
Contractor: Adroit Construction
What started out as a small early 1900′s auto service repair and gas station and later converted into a fire station is now the site of one of the most attractive buildings in the City and probably one of the most attractive fire stations on the West Coast.Prior to the City’s commitment to reconstruct the fire station, the old fire/gas station was considered by manyin the community as an unattractive site with dangerous ingress and egress access.
Since the building’s completion, the community has embrace the building with enthusiasm.
The street activity along the frontage clearly demonstrates a positive aesthetic impact as well as a financial benefit shared throughout the Downtown area.In an age when projects of this type do not consider “human scale” design or orientation or have such recessed parking bays, they create a “missing tooth” in the Main Street façade.
Also, new fire stations are typically built near the city’s fringe – fragmenting any potential lationship to downtown businesses and the community. Ashland Fire & Rescue Station #1 shows vision for future developments in the City.The Historic Commission would like to thank not only the citizens of Ashland for providing the funds to build the station, but also the Ashland City Council for providing the necessary direction and vision for our community’s future.
Mesa, Arizona Fire Station No. 217
Architect: Wood Associates Architects, Inc., Mesa
Columbia, Missouri, Peckham & Wright Architects
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Comments
The Arizona example is pretty suburban, but the others, including OKC’s #37 are just fine. Perhaps not “great” architecture, but pretty substantial buildings constructed of materials with good longevity. Fire station buildings usually survive become out-moded and get converted to other uses. A couple of examples would be NW 10th and Hudson and NW 10th between Portland & Meridian. The building at NW 10th and Hudson was purchased at auction for about $36K and converted to a private residence for a few years and then served as the offices of the MidCity Advocate now Sentina. It is presently on the market to lease (or for sale perhaps).
The station at NW 16th and Pennsylvania is an example of a public building that stretched the design envelope a little and was considered very contemporary when constructed about 25 years ago.
[...] this year we looked at earlyday OKC fire stations and discussed how other cities have designed stations to fit into urban or historic [...]
I’m fairly confident that the city will do justice to the neighborhood. It will probably be done with lots of brick and I’m sure it will have the contemporary twist favored by Nonna’s and the Ballpark. I think the Ashland example’s design would actually fit perfectly.