NEW FIRE STATION BUILDING IN TUTTLINGEN
Recognition at the German Brick Award 2017
New building for the volunteer fire brigade, accommodating a control room, administration, training, technical equipment, a vehicle depot, workshops, and a combined hose and training tower
With its manifold functional requirements, a fire station needs an underlying design concept that transforms the building into a complete organism and lends it a distinctive identity. In the new building for the volunteer fire brigade in Tuttlingen, the fire station's manifold building functions are incorporated into a geometrically reduced two-storey construction volume. Here, any architectural articulations that might obscure this simple building layout are deliberately avoided.
The building is made from solid materials of lasting value and has a durable facade of hard-burnt brick, the oldest and most traditional building material. This is not in red, but instead a chromatically oscillating anthracite-grey colour spectrum was chosen, so as to fittingly display the row of emergency vehicles facing the forecourt through the glazed fire station doors. This emphasises the technical nature of the building. The homogenous design gives the horizontal building suitable presence in the urban space and conveys a sense of reserved elegance.
With a simple longitudinal construction volume, the new fire station integrates into the urban development context of peripheral commercial buildings and establishes a spatial relationship with the parallel police building on the neighbouring site to the west.
At the same time, the building accentuates the intersection of Stockacher Straße / Im Jungen Steigle without forming a perimeter along these streets. Here, due to an open forecourt, the new fire station, which offers a clear view inside its vehicle depot, is set some distance back from the road and can be seen from far away, thus providing an appropriate structural prelude at Tuttlingen's town entrance.
The 15-metre-high hose and training tower rises out of the south end of the horizontal building volume, acting as a signal of urban development that can also easily be seen from the nearby state road. At night, the building's appearance is similarly characterised by the tower, which is then illuminated and helps to make the fire brigade in Tuttlingen more strongly identifiable.
