A fire station is first and foremost a civic structure. It also doubles as a work space, home base, gym, indoor training facility and even a public polling place. When designing Madison, Wisconsin’s largest fire station, local OPN Architects was tasked with addressing each of these program uses in their design – all while meeting the city requirement for low energy use.
OPN Architects designed Station #14 with a geothermal energy system, rooftop photovoltaics and translucent daylighting panels. These features allowed them to exceed local energy code by 30%, earn a LEED Platinum rating and achieve a 70% reduction in energy use over comparable facilities.