Rescue Company 3 Firehouse

As part of the ongoing modernization of the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY), the design of a new firehouse for Rescue Company 3 meets the current and future needs of one the most highly specialized FDNY units in the City of New York.

The new two-story building will be operational 24 hours a day and will contain many of the spaces typically found in fire stations: office spaces; dining facilities; dormitory; and an Apparatus Bay for the Company’s three vehicles. In addition to these common features, the building contains spaces designed for the storage and maintenance of the company’s specialized tools and vehicles, and areas for training personnel and testing equipment.  All spaces in the building are strategically located relative to the most important equipment in the house: the Apparatus Rigs.

The department’s rescue vehicles, the Rescue Rig, the Structural Collapse Utility Truck, and the Recuperation and Care Unit served the architects as a design source.  Referred to as “rolling toolboxes”, these vehicles contain an extensive collection of equipment that is rigorously organized and stowed away in compartments around the vehicles, ready-at-hand at an emergency. Designed for maximum efficiency, with the vehicles in close proximity to spaces housing supportive functions, the building intentionally resembles a piece of equipment, a kind of “stationary toolbox.” With its distinctive profile and metal cladding, the building evokes the type of helmet worn by rescue workers.  The FDNY’s instantly recognizable, bright-red overhead doors complete the design.

The site, located in the Bathgate section of the Bronx, is in an area characterized by light-manufacturing buildings. Responding to its industrial context, structural concrete and ironspot masonry anchor the building with a solid base, which supports a lighter steel framework and folded zinc roof above.