Fire Station in Jerez de los Caballeros
The project for the Fire Station, located on the outskirts of Jerez de los Caballeros (Badajoz), is a consequence of the meeting between functionality and visibility that a public facility of this nature requires. Starting from a responsible attitude , which combines good practice of the trade and the search for what is significant , the proposal is approached based on scrupulous compliance with the program, but without giving up architectural quality. This turns the building into a compact object on two floors, whose program is distributed around the privacy of uses and environmental conditions. Thus, the public rooms 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 face north, optimizing their use through neutral light and avoiding excessive radiation. The project is proposed from the homogeneity of the complex around two prefabricated and industrial materials, copper-colored galvanized steel sheet 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 facades, which balances the scale of the piece, and the ennoblement of the prefabricated materials , provide meaning, personality and presence to a building that would otherwise disappear in a peripheral industrial landscape.
From bays of optimal dimensions and the use of dry construction systems, an effective and 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 the technical solutions has been their efficiency and functionality, both aesthetically and economically, criteria taken as an ethical commitment to quality that, we believe, every public facility building must assume naturally. This concept is materialized in a series of premises that base the material execution decisions of the project: durability and ease of maintenance, economical materials but of proven quality, aesthetic uniqueness and representative of the public condition of the building, environmental comfort of the spaces, sustainability and bioclimatic efficiency of the construction solutions and the chosen materials, modularity and standardization of elements, and use of prefabricated elements where possible.
In this case, the constructive definition of the building acquires an essential character to transcend the usual merely industrial image of the environment and program. In an exercise in haute couture povera , the architecture tries to transform the skin of the building, by applying a strict Cartesian geometry on simple and prefabricated materials, such as galvanized steel sheet and cellular polycarbonate, into an envelope of noble appearance, in the manner of a tailored suit, carefully cut but made 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, formed by an insulating interior sheet of cellular concrete blocks, and an exterior covering of architectural panels of profiled steel sheet lacquered in copper color. . Lighting and ventilation are resolved through openings that always form complete bands, incorporated into the volumetric play of the facades, composed 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 sheet 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 the work. of the firefighters.
