Montgomery County Maryland

Medium Size Facility

NEW REPLACEMENT FACILITY

Career Facility with a Volunteer Fire Component

Three 20'-0" wide back-in Apparatus Bay station

20,000 SF One Story urban emergency services station in an historic community

brick and stone construction

construction cost $9.5 million

2010 estimated completion date

History:

My company first started working on this facility in the late 1990's.  We were hired by the City of Takoma Park to work with community stakeholders and lead a feasibility study with the mission to determine if a new fire station could be built on this difficult site and was a viable venture that would meet or exceed all of the strict MCDFRS facility standards for new modern Fire/EMS facilities including a meeting/training room on the lower level.  The stakeholders included Takoma Park Volunteer Fire Department, City of Takoma Park, Montgomery County DFRS, and others. Later we designed this new modern facility with a special emphasis on meeting the strict MCDFRS standards plus integrating the exterior design with an older historic community that had a large shaker style and bungalow style architecture.  Under the careful eye of two historic groups, Historic Takoma and the Montgomery County Historic Commission we skillfully manipulated the required structure requirements to make the final unique building design indigenous to the community and reflect the iconic image of a traditional fire station including a clock tower.  In addition the historic original stone north wall was completely saved and incorporated into the new building design.  Other original building stone dragged up from the creek below by the original volunteer firefighters in the 1930's was also salvaged, saved, and lovingly reused carefully on the exterior elevations.  See photographs. This project is a textbook example of a group effort to save a community's historic volunteer fire station from abandonment and how the clever use of traditional iconic architectural elements were used to create a new structure that feels at ease and at home in the community.

Takoma Park Volunteer Fire Department