A fire chief recently told me he figured out how to save a big chunk of money on his new station. How? He was going to use a neighboring department’s station plans. “It’s a great facility and it will save us a ton of money,” he said.
Interesting idea, but I’ve sat through too many presentations on fire station designs and construction to believe this is an inexpensive solution. Seems to me the chief will still need an independent third party to review the site location, the response times, and zoning code requirements of his department before getting too far along in the process.
According to Trevor M. Frank, senior architect, SEH, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and design professionals have grappled with “recycling” or using stock plans for many years.
many years.
“From an ethical stand point, recycling designs is not only unethical if another firm ‘borrows’ a design from another station, but it can also be illegal if the work is copyrighted,” Frank said. “The other thing that bears mentioning is that most of the architects who design emergency response facilities are specialists. We have committed several years of our careers designing these facilities so if a department wants to take a station and ‘modify it’ to fit their needs, they will likely employ a different professional (usually at lower cost) that may not have the specialized training in emergency services building design.”
Frank also explained that, “Providing ‘minor tweaks’ to a previously designed station can have negative impacts on efficiency or, worse yet, create problems that will be plague the station for the life of the building.”
The AIA has a position on using stock plans for school designs that could apply to fire stations also: “Stock plans: Design standards can create efficiencies and save money, but cookie-cutter designs are a fast track to higher costs and poor functionality. That’s why we urge state legislatures and local government authorities to reject the use of standardized or stock plans. Taxpayer investments are best served when design is site and project-specific. Our position on stock school plans points out how stock plans force students and communities to pay the price in poor energy use, obsolete technology and
higher insurance costs.”
Frank added, “A fire station will still likely need to hire a professional to manage the project and make design changes, as every school is different and every site is different.”
Brian Harris, principal, TCA Architecture, weighed in on duplicating fire station plans, noting that the department often ends up finding the results disappointing.
“In a world where making-due is considered a compromise, most departments want stations tailored to their community, environment and culture,” Harris said. “We already have drinks, shoes, equipment, cars and even electronic devises for every circumstance in life. So it’s not a stretch to say customization for optimized performance has become the default. One-size-fits-all in the design of emergency response facilities is rare.”
The changing nature and responsibilities of the fire and emergency services has drastically impacted the design of fire stations and public safety facilities. For example, designated fitness rooms were considered extravagant in the late-90s, and designing
training opportunities into a fire station in early-2000s was considered revolutionary. Sleeping areas began to change from open dorms to individual rooms with more diversity in the fire service, as well as less restricting disturbance with the increased EMS response. The Hot Zones concept of limiting contamination in stations, introduced in 2014, has rapidly changed the floor plans of new stations.
Dennis Ross, director of Emergency Services Market, Pacheco Ross Architects, a division of H2M, has also had clients ask about using previously used station plans.
“Mostly they want to know if we can pull a plan ‘off the shelf’ that we have done for someone else; this actually happened twice,” Ross said. “The first client ended up changing so much of the design that we ended up designed a completely new building. The second client made lots of significant changes and didn’t see the perceived savings they were looking for. Many others ask the question, but give up after programming when they are able to see that a custom design tends to fit them better than someone else’s design.”
Ross believes there is a continual need to improve facilities, to make them safer, more operationally efficient, resource smart, and continue to learn from the past and design to the future. For small substations or small satellite facilities, prototypes are much easier and viable.
“Does this preclude using prototypical elements of a facility that work well?” Ross asked. “No, as long as they are proven to support a department well and are weighed against the benefit of continued improvement, short and long-term cost impacts, and operational betterments.”
Ross added: “With very rare exceptions, every site is substantially different enough to cause issues with an existing design. This concept is more true with fire and rescue stations than with something like a retail strip center. If a site is large enough to be able to use the best portion of it or the portion that best mimics the other guy’s site, relocating an existing design has some potential. However, there will be issues. These can be simple things like the building was designed to face north and all windows are subsequently designed accordingly. Your site may face south and windows don’t work out so well. By far the bigger issues will be actual site related issues, such as contours, size, shape, access, natural features and how the other guy’s existing design responded to his site.”
to his site.”
Ross believes the other aspect of using prototypes is the question of future flexibility: “Not so much about adding a bay or another set of bunk rooms, but more about the changing mission (adding a rescue squad, student bunkers, new health issues, Amazon moved into our neighborhood, and adapting to new trends,” he said.
https://www.firehouse.com/stations/...-borrow-fire-station-plans-firehouse-magazine
Interesting idea, but I’ve sat through too many presentations on fire station designs and construction to believe this is an inexpensive solution. Seems to me the chief will still need an independent third party to review the site location, the response times, and zoning code requirements of his department before getting too far along in the process.
According to Trevor M. Frank, senior architect, SEH, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and design professionals have grappled with “recycling” or using stock plans for many years.
many years.
“From an ethical stand point, recycling designs is not only unethical if another firm ‘borrows’ a design from another station, but it can also be illegal if the work is copyrighted,” Frank said. “The other thing that bears mentioning is that most of the architects who design emergency response facilities are specialists. We have committed several years of our careers designing these facilities so if a department wants to take a station and ‘modify it’ to fit their needs, they will likely employ a different professional (usually at lower cost) that may not have the specialized training in emergency services building design.”
Frank also explained that, “Providing ‘minor tweaks’ to a previously designed station can have negative impacts on efficiency or, worse yet, create problems that will be plague the station for the life of the building.”
The AIA has a position on using stock plans for school designs that could apply to fire stations also: “Stock plans: Design standards can create efficiencies and save money, but cookie-cutter designs are a fast track to higher costs and poor functionality. That’s why we urge state legislatures and local government authorities to reject the use of standardized or stock plans. Taxpayer investments are best served when design is site and project-specific. Our position on stock school plans points out how stock plans force students and communities to pay the price in poor energy use, obsolete technology and
higher insurance costs.”
Frank added, “A fire station will still likely need to hire a professional to manage the project and make design changes, as every school is different and every site is different.”
Brian Harris, principal, TCA Architecture, weighed in on duplicating fire station plans, noting that the department often ends up finding the results disappointing.
“In a world where making-due is considered a compromise, most departments want stations tailored to their community, environment and culture,” Harris said. “We already have drinks, shoes, equipment, cars and even electronic devises for every circumstance in life. So it’s not a stretch to say customization for optimized performance has become the default. One-size-fits-all in the design of emergency response facilities is rare.”
The changing nature and responsibilities of the fire and emergency services has drastically impacted the design of fire stations and public safety facilities. For example, designated fitness rooms were considered extravagant in the late-90s, and designing
training opportunities into a fire station in early-2000s was considered revolutionary. Sleeping areas began to change from open dorms to individual rooms with more diversity in the fire service, as well as less restricting disturbance with the increased EMS response. The Hot Zones concept of limiting contamination in stations, introduced in 2014, has rapidly changed the floor plans of new stations.
Dennis Ross, director of Emergency Services Market, Pacheco Ross Architects, a division of H2M, has also had clients ask about using previously used station plans.
“Mostly they want to know if we can pull a plan ‘off the shelf’ that we have done for someone else; this actually happened twice,” Ross said. “The first client ended up changing so much of the design that we ended up designed a completely new building. The second client made lots of significant changes and didn’t see the perceived savings they were looking for. Many others ask the question, but give up after programming when they are able to see that a custom design tends to fit them better than someone else’s design.”
Ross believes there is a continual need to improve facilities, to make them safer, more operationally efficient, resource smart, and continue to learn from the past and design to the future. For small substations or small satellite facilities, prototypes are much easier and viable.
“Does this preclude using prototypical elements of a facility that work well?” Ross asked. “No, as long as they are proven to support a department well and are weighed against the benefit of continued improvement, short and long-term cost impacts, and operational betterments.”
Ross added: “With very rare exceptions, every site is substantially different enough to cause issues with an existing design. This concept is more true with fire and rescue stations than with something like a retail strip center. If a site is large enough to be able to use the best portion of it or the portion that best mimics the other guy’s site, relocating an existing design has some potential. However, there will be issues. These can be simple things like the building was designed to face north and all windows are subsequently designed accordingly. Your site may face south and windows don’t work out so well. By far the bigger issues will be actual site related issues, such as contours, size, shape, access, natural features and how the other guy’s existing design responded to his site.”
to his site.”
Ross believes the other aspect of using prototypes is the question of future flexibility: “Not so much about adding a bay or another set of bunk rooms, but more about the changing mission (adding a rescue squad, student bunkers, new health issues, Amazon moved into our neighborhood, and adapting to new trends,” he said.
https://www.firehouse.com/stations/...-borrow-fire-station-plans-firehouse-magazine
