A compact and functional object. Fire station by NGNP arquitectos

Project description by NGNP arquitectos

The project for the Fire Station, located on the outskirts of Jerez de los Caballeros (Badajoz), is the result of the encounter between functionality and visibility that a public facility of this nature requires. Starting from a responsible attitude, which combines the good practice of the trade and the search for what is significant, the proposal is approached from a scrupulous fulfillment of the program, but without sacrificing architectural quality. This turns the building into a compact object on two floors, whose program is distributed around the privacy of the uses and the environmental conditions. Thus, the public facilities associated with professional use (offices, hangar, gym or changing rooms) are located on the ground floor, while the bedrooms and classroom are upstairs. With this arrangement, the living and sleeping areas are oriented to the north, optimizing their use due to neutral light and avoiding excessive radiation. The project arises from the homogeneity of the whole around two materials, the normalized copper-colored sheet metal and polycarbonate, whose arrangement allows four different facades to be presented depending on their relationship with the landscape they face. This compositional proposal, abstract and resounding, from the material provides monumentality to a building that, a priori, does not require it. However, both the neoplastic composition of the façades, which balances the scale of the piece, and the ennoblement of the prefabricated materials, bring meaning, personality and presence to a building that would otherwise disappear in a peripheral industrial landscape.

The proposal is based on an exhaustive analysis of the fundamental parameters of the project: the requested program and the available budget. Our work always seeks to guarantee the economic and technical viability of the work, optimizing the proposed building to the maximum, avoiding unnecessary tasks and reasonedly assessing the program, scrupulously complying with it. This approach tries to protect public investment but in no way renounces the architectural quality necessary to ensure the visibility and functionality of equipment of this nature.


Fire station by NGNP arquitectos. Photography by Jesús Granada.


Fire station by NGNP arquitectos. Photography by Jesús Granada.

Scrupulous compliance with the program leads to a very compact proposal, organizing all uses in a single built volume, which allows for reduced circulation, which results in better functionality, as all points of the space are relatively close to the hangar in case of emergency. . The hangar, the changing rooms and toilets and showers, the gym, offices, rooms, and service spaces (warehouses, cleaning, facilities...) are all located on the ground floor, as required by the program provided. Bedrooms, kitchen - dining room, training and toilets are located on the top floor, in a very compact room. The main pedestrian circulation inside is established as an extension to the access, as a backbone, which divides the building into a north bay and others to the south. The uses of residence, rooms, offices, etc. are arranged to the north, taking advantage of a constant neutral light throughout the day, avoiding excessive radiation and glare. To the south, 3 fundamental packages are developed: gymnasium, with direct connection to the outside, with the track and practice tower; toilets and changing rooms, gradually related in 3 bands (cleaning changing rooms facing the main distribution, toilets and showers forming the central band, and intervention changing rooms, with direct access to the hangar); and a hangar, which also has a direct connection to the main layout of the residence building, in the widest area, next to the staircase that leads to the upper floor. In this, the main program is also arranged to the north, being located to the south, in a smaller bay than the north, the toilets and the storage of training and office equipment. The access to the terrace is also established on the south façade, on the ground floor volume, with views towards the urban nucleus. This terrace, in turn, gives access to the terrace for machines and facilities, adjacent to the truck garage area, minimizing the lengths of the most important installation networks.

From bays of optimal dimensions and the use of dry construction systems, the much-desired modularity is achieved inside the building, which allows the redistribution and exchange of surfaces with great ease and at a very low cost. Thus, the fundamental criteria of rationality, sustainability and economy that marked the client's proposal have been maintained and adequately developed. The general concept that has guided their choice in the development of technical solutions has been their efficiency and functionality, both aesthetically and economically, criteria these are taken as an ethical commitment to quality that, we believe, all public equipment buildings should take naturally. This concept is materialized in a series of premises that support the decisions of material execution of the project: durability and ease of maintenance, cheap materials but of proven quality, aesthetic singularity and representative of the public condition of the building, environmental comfort of the spaces, sustainability and bioclimatic efficiency of the constructive solutions and the chosen materials, modularity and standardization of elements, and the use of prefabricated elements where possible.


Fire station by NGNP arquitectos. Photography by Jesús Granada.

Constructively, this is carried out by a structure of unidirectional reinforced concrete slabs supported on concrete supports, and facades with two different treatments are proposed: opaque areas formed by a ventilated facade with an exterior finish of lacquered and folded steel sheet, and an interior sheet by lining. laminated plaster and thermal insulation; and area of openings with translucent bands made up of cellular polycarbonate plates tongue-and-groove with aluminum profiles and fixed or tilt-and-turn windows with double-glazed chambers and aluminum carpentry. All this, he builds the envelope in such a way that, maintaining the original volumetry and general configuration, a resounding, elegant and aesthetically consistent image is achieved, as well as technically more functional.

The constructive definition of the building acquires in this case an essential character to transcend the usual merely industrial image of environment and program. In an exercise in haute couture povera, the architecture tries to transform the skin of the building, through the application of a strict Cartesian geometry on simple and prefabricated materials, such as sheet steel and cellular polycarbonate, into a noble-looking envelope, while like a tailored suit, carefully cut but executed with humble fabrics: dignified and durable. The project tries to squeeze the available budget, designing ventilated facades, suitable for the extreme climate of the town, made up of an insulating interior sheet of aerated concrete blocks, and an exterior cladding of architectural panels of profiled and lacquered steel sheet in copper color. . Lighting and ventilation are solved by openings that always make up complete bands, incorporated into the volumetric game of the facades, made up of translucent cellular polycarbonate planes and some specific glass windows, which emphasize the available views. A set of galvanized steel plates serves to trace the clear drawing that overlaps opaque and translucent planes, copper plate and opal polycarbonate, as well as a few subtractions that highlight the accesses, as if they were the seams of the austere dress that honors of the firemen's work.