The 2018 Station Design Conference—held at the Bob Bolen Public Safety Complex in Fort Worth, TX—brought together participants from 31 states for three days of focus on designing and building new facilities. The fifth annual SDC had the highest attendance of all previous conferences, and we were ecstatic to see attendees from prior SDCs who wanted to learn more as their projects progressed.
An expanded exhibit area offered attendees an opportunity to talk to 43 vendors about everything related to fire stations and public safety facilities, from architects and security systems to furniture and fitness equipment.
Additionally, this year, with support from Officer.com’s Editorial Director Frank Borelli and Fort Worth Police Department’s Captain Linda Stuart, we introduced a preconference program for law enforcement (LE) personnel involved in new LE stations and public safety facilities. This program will be a track in the 2019 Station Design Conference, so watch for details and share with your LE friends!
Perhaps the most rewarding part of the conference for me was after the last session Friday. Mike Huus, a fire trustee from Hamilton, MT, showed me over 20 pages of his tiny, handwritten notes from the conference. He said it was “such valuable information.”
Here we’ll review a few of the educational sessions from the conference related to design specification basics, NFPA standards, the use of geographical information system (GIS) in station planning, and designs that promote better sleep at the station. For more information about related topics, visit fhstationdesign.com or firehouse.com/stations.
— By Janet Wilmoth, Conference Director
Let's Get a Lasso Around Your Project
Presentation by Ken Newell, Stewart-Cooper-Newell Architects
The design and construction of a new fire station is a large project that involves dozens of people collaborating, followed by months of meetings and site visits to finalize the project. Architect Ken Newell opened the 2018 Firehouse Station Design Conference with a session titled “Let's Get a Lasso Around Your Project,” detailing a variety of elements that are critical to the entire station design process.
Site selection
When selecting the location for the construction project, Newell said there are number of visible and non-visible challenges that can increase costs and add delays to completing the station. Visible site challenges include boundaries, topography, utilities, tree lines and existing structures. Non-visible items include hard soils/rocks, water tables and marsh lands, utilities, hazardous materials used in construction, hazard materials that infiltrated the ground, and historic burial sites.
“Oftentimes people move forward into projects without considering these things, and that’s when they get in trouble,” Newell said, adding that the best way to work around many of these issues is to build on previously undeveloped land.
Development
There are four common approaches used for public safety facilities that are employed from the idea phase until construction is complete:
1. Design-Bid-Build: Fire departments hire an architect who works for them and helps them through the entire process. The fire department then works with separate contractors to build out the project. This is the most common approach.
2. Construction Management at Risk: A contractor is brought in during the design process to develop early budget costs. The early estimates allow fire departments to get a better idea of design concepts that are affordable and functional without running into financial issues during the construction stage. This process is gaining popularity for public safety projects.
3. Design Build: A fire department first hires a contractor and the contractor brings their preferred architect into the project.
4. Construction Management: A third-party firm is hired, and they hire the architect and contractors to complete the project on behalf of the fire department.
Costs
Project managers and fire departments need to have realistic goals and a solid understanding of the budget when they go into the design process, Newell explained.
“If you tell us that you need a $4 million station, and you can only afford a $3 million station, you’ve wasted a lot of time,” he said.
One of the most common budgeting misunderstandings involves what the contractor provides in the estimate, called the hard costs, including site work, building materials, landscaping and labor. Newell said soft costs, which include fixtures, furniture, legal and finance fees, are often overlooked. He explained that the hard costs are usually 75 percent of the total project and the soft costs are 25 percent of the overall cost.
Newell said that fire service personnel are often caught off guard by the number of times large payments are due, and offered the following four phases for the biggest payouts:
1. The acquisition of property, if new property needs to be purchased, including surveys and legal paperwork.
2. The planning and design phase when architects, planners and contractors are brought in and some retainers or deposits are collected.
3. The construction period, which is usually long-term and could include several payments over six months, a year or longer.
4. The occupancy phase when furniture, fixtures, appliances and other necessities are purchased. This also includes moving crews and their equipment from the old station to the new station.
In the 10-year period leading up to 2017, construction costs rose by 22 percent, so departments considering projects in the future, or postponing current plans, need to consider those additional dollars.
“Every month that goes by, you’ll have to come up with 2 percent more of your money,” Newell said, adding that long-term maintenance at the station will ultimately cost more than the initial design and building.
Existing structures, such as the current fire station or other structures on a newly acquired site, can actually create a funding stream, an option that’s often overlooked during fire station projects, Newell said. Specifically, if a builder seeks a current fire station site for a project and the station can be relocated nearby—not affecting the response times or Insurance Services Organization (ISO) ratings—Newell said that sale can provide significant funding for a new, modern station.
Design and trends
Breaking fire stations into zones, including public and private, will help architects begin their work with a solid foundation. Firefighters need to discuss what areas the public will be allow to access. For instance, will they be able to enter apparatus bays or use meeting rooms or living areas? Decisions like this will drive other factors, such as the location of public parking, to help avoid situations like members of the public stumbling into off-limits areas of the station.
The ongoing findings from firefighter cancer research is having a huge impact on the design of fire stations, from hot zones where containments need to be isolated to air-handling systems and firefighter decontamination. Newell expects the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to convert some of the current trends into laws within 10 years to reduce firefighters’ exposure.
The use of private bathrooms and bedrooms continue to grow in popularity, and it helps as more and more municipalities are looking to meet gender-neutral requirements.
“The one thing you need to do in the design phase is determine the male-to-female firefighter ratio in the station,” Newell said. “If you dedicate a female-only restroom and there’s only one on the shift or in the station, you have rooms you can’t use for the majority of shifts.”
Departments are also looking to increase the ability to train at and inside stations, so departments are incorporating training towers, stairwells and various training props into the structures. Newell emphasized the need for departments to address their training needs to help develop the appropriate spaces that will allow firefighters to build their skills.
“One of the trends that we’ve seen that does eventually impact the stations is that volunteer fire departments need to prepare for the transition to career,” Newell said.
He said parking areas near the bays allow volunteers to quickly access their gear and the apparatus, but when personal vehicle security for career firefighters is needed, it should be located elsewhere.
Additionally, large bunk rooms used in volunteer stations for the occasional storm standby are not functional for part-time or full-time staffing, so planning needs to include spacious bunk rooms with amenities for each crewmember.
Experience pays off
Newell stressed the importance of working with architects or planners who have experience in public safety facilities because of NFPA standards, ISO and OSHA requirements, and because they understand the workflow of fire stations.
Integrating NFPA Standards into Your Fire Station
Presentation by Ray Holliday and Jennifer Bettiol, Brown Reynolds Watford (BRW) Architects
NFPA 1500
Related to NFPA 1500, which impacts fire station design in several areas, including cancer prevention, firefighter fitness and stress, Bettiol said new fire stations includes airlocks—the areas between the living space and apparatus bay—where positive-pressure airflow or an air curtain can help remove containments from living spaces. Further, PPE must be stored in low-light areas without fluorescent lights, she said, adding that the space must have ventilation to remove particulates from the area and needs to be away from the living area.
Cardiac events continue to be the leading cause of firefighter deaths, and efforts are being made to reduce these risks. For example, because departments are required to have fitness programs, designs need to include safety features, such as windows to the workout area to ensure firefighters are visible in case of a health emergency. Additionally, indoor and outdoor fitness areas can be used when space is limited, but they need to have easy access to the apparatus bays.
Allowing firefighters to unwind and communicate in the station can help lower stress levels. Designs can include common spaces for crews to talk and debrief, comfortable seating, and areas to watch TV or read.
NFPA 1851
As the standard covering the maintenance and care of firefighter PPE, NFPA 1851 requires departments to have separate laundry facilities for contaminated PPE and uniforms and station clothing, towels and bedding. Laundry areas continue to evolve and are being separated so personal belongings can be cleaned in the living areas where PPE is off limits and is laundered near the apparatus bay.
Waste water removal and air flow are other factors to consider in the design process, Bettiol said.
NFPA 1710 and 1720
NFPA 1710 and 1720 standards cover the operations of career departments and volunteer departments, respectively.
“While we can’t control what happens outside the station, what we can do is translate the design into how fast we can get them out of the station,” Bettiol said.
Designs can have a major impact on turnout times for career departments, including access from the second floor to the first-floor apparatus bay and from first-floor living spaces.
Bettiol said different clients have required different turnout times, including a department where ambulances must leave the station in 45 seconds, while fire apparatus have additional time to allow crews to get dressed before boarding the apparatus.
The easiest way to decrease response time, Bettiol said, is to give firefighters “direct access without bends or turns in hallways. It’ll slow you down and create hazards.” Further, door swings need to be designed so that firefighters will not open a door into another firefighter’s path of travel.
Poles can reduce response time from an upper level by 50 percent or more, but safety features need to be included on both levels to prevent falls and hard landings.
A GIS Approach to Fire Station and EMS Projects
Presentation by Michael Clark and Heather Lewis, Five Bugles Design
Technology and data can play a big role in the early stages fire station design. For instance, geographical information systems (GIS) uses data that communities have collected and researchers can use to understand response needs. Michael Clark explained how GIS can be used to “tell the story about how and where the community’s needs and the fire department’s needs overlap.”
A team of emergency services specialists from Clark’s firm collects up to 20 criteria in multiple categories—streets and speed limits, population densities, traffic hot spots, target hazard locations, call volumes and response times. In the case of volunteer departments, the data can show the best place to locate a fire station based on the firefighters’ residences and response times. Those factors can be computed and mapped to compare with NFPA 1710 and 1720 and ISO response time requirements.
Clark presented a case study of a Midwest fire department was studying the effectiveness of its existing station locations where response times for firefighters from their homes to the stations grew, slowing turnout times. The population growth increased the number of target hazard locations. The community was also cut by a busy railroad line. The GIS study showed the city council that they needed to add a third station because of the growth and the fact that the busy rail line cut off many responders from the current station locations.
The Dangers of Sleep Deprivation
Presentation by Ray Holliday and Jennifer Bettiol, Brown Reynolds Watford (BRW) Architects
Holliday and Bettiol explained how fire station design can have both a positive and negative impact on sleep deprivation.
Single bedrooms can give firefighter a positive sleep environment, including cutting down on noises, and can also reduce the number of times a firefighter has to wake up when they are not required to respond when another crew is alerted.
Bettiol recommended that sleeping spaces not have TV or computers because the blue lights they emit stimulate the body to stay awake. The pair shared that the ability to incorporate as much natural light into fire station design as possible helps balance the body’s internal systems and makes for a more pleasant environment.
When it comes to nighttime alerting of crews, the use of red lights is suggested because it has less impact on a firefighter’s heart rate. Alerting systems that start off gentle and get louder also decease the strain on a waking firefighter. A trend that they are seeing is limited pathway lighting in the stations and decreasing the number of lights in the apparatus bay.
Fitness regimes lead to stress reduction as well, so Bettiol emphasized the need for workout spaces at stations.
“Exercise areas help mitigate stress, burn extra energy and balance body functions,” she said, adding that evening workouts can help prepare a firefighter for a good night’s sleep, barring any responses.
