Firebrigade Equipment House | bfa I büro für architektur

The municipality of Auenwald is an amalgamation of 15 districts. The larger districts had their own voluntary fire brigade departments, which were housed in decentralised locations. In order to complete the merger structurally, a joint fire station in the Unterbrüden district was put out to tender.

The design responds to the slope situation of the site by dividing the spatial programme into a number of different building parts, which are optimised according to their respective use. The large-scale service yards were terraced and thus fit into this landscape-related concept.

The concept was based on thoughts of the encounter between landscape and architecture. The direct contact of these factors determines this theme and shapes the architecture - an architecture that attempts to specify the topography, materialises and then flows back into the landscape. The material concrete takes over the shaping of this dialogue. The concrete folds towards the slope as if made of paper, opening up the space and allowing the terrain to flow into it.

In Auenwald, an extremely sensitive approach to the conditions of the site led to a differentiated staggering of the cubatures of the fire station building: Instead of emphasising the special situation at the entrance to the village with a dominant high point, the architecture begins a sensitive play with the topography. This is precisely where the architects have succeeded: Building on the site at the interface with the open landscape in the best sense without overbuilding it.'

Hans-Jürgen Breuning