- Location:
- Nottinghamshire
- Budget:
- £3.5m
- Client:
- Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue
- Size:
- 8,000 m2 GIA
- Sector:
- Blue Light & MOD / Defence
The new purpose built fire station is part of the continued redevelopment of the former Vesuvius brickworks site on the western edges of Worksop.
The new 800m2 station comprises a two storey building and an adjoining single storey appliance bay ‘garage’ for 3 fire engines and a three storey training tower.
The main building accommodates a gym, offices and a meeting/training room for use by fire service personnel and the wider community. The station’s Community Room will also function as a staff training room for use both by on site fire service personnel and others from across the county for specialist rescue training.
The 3 storey training tower will also offer Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service a unique multi-storey training facility.
Unlike most fire service training towers it functions as the building’s external escape stair from both first floor and roof level, and as a result provides a different training facility to towers elsewhere, which are usually separate, a distance away from their building and only have ladder access platforms within.
The design team adopted a “fabric first” approach by using high levels of insulation and sought to utilise renewable energy via roof level air source heat pumps and photovoltaic panels. As built modelling of CO2 emissions demonstrate a 33% improvement over minimum building regulations standards. Electric Vehicle charging spaces (one of which is accessible) are also provided for four vehicles
The architectural design and materials of the Fire Station were chosen to complement the scale, forms and materials of the Vesuvius masterplan and its retail/industrial context. The design challenge was to maximise rather than minimise the building’s impact so that it would sit comfortably alongside a much larger supermarket neighbour and act as a node on a future roundabout as the retail park expanded.