Introduction
Public entities have to do more with less, and the design and construction of emergency response facilities is no exception. Tight budgets, complicated schedules, and public relations can present a wide range of challenges. On top of this, successful facility improvements must be far-sighted, and meet the demands of today while maintaining the flexibility to effectively support future operations. With all this in mind, seeing an emergency response project from conception to operation can be daunting. An experienced design team, with the requisite expertise, will help maximize a community and department’s investment and set the stage for long-term efficiency.
Successful law enforcement and fire station projects address both functional requirements and aesthetic considerations, and serve as community cornerstones. Achieving these goals requires significant buy-in and support from the community—an element of the project process Mackenzie’s team is passionate about. Keeping the public informed and engaged through outreach sessions is integral in gaining community support, particularly if siting a new station or seeking voter approval of a bond.
In the following pages, we illustrate themes and strategies in Mackenzie’s approach to emergency response facility design, including:
Durability + Longevity
Renovations
Community
Enhancing Culture
Operational Design
Seismic Improvements & Renovations
Renovation projects often include a range of goals such as increased size, improved operational efficiency, facility hardening, and seismic rehabilitation. Our design team strives to integrate these goals to maximize the value of the effort and minimize the impact to the staff.
It is crucial to understand all the components that go into the cost of a renovation project. In addition to the cost of construction, there is the cost of design-related activities (including survey, geotechnical investigation, materials testing, etc.); obtaining a building permit; moving and storing furnishings; relocating staff; and staff time for managing the project.
Gaining public support to fund a renovation project can be a complicated process, requiring a nuanced and articulate outreach program. Essential facilities are carefully maintained and often look, at first glance, to be in good condition. Clear communication of operational needs and challenges is important. The following approaches can aid in communication and budget management of your renovation project:
Determine if the facility will continue to provide service during the project. Substantial savings can be achieved by allowing the contractor full facility access during construction, but this is not always feasible.
Include a contingency budget for unforeseen issues.
Hold public meetings inside the facility, with the design team in attendance, so everyone can gain a firsthand understanding of the needs not visible to the casual observer.
Consider using the Construction Manager/General Contractor delivery method, in which a construction company is engaged during the design process to provide more certainty on the construction price.
Community Engagement and Context
We find that public projects take form when design ideas authentically reflect the individual community’s characteristics and culture. These buildings are often legacy projects, designed to last up to a century, and play an integral, long-term part in the life of the communities they support. Successfully delivering a project like this requires a nuanced understanding of the community, overarching aspirations, and empirical projections like demographic growth.
Mackenzie is passionate about immersing ourselves in the communities we design for and understanding the expectations of the diverse stakeholders within them. Our commitment to realizing and embracing a community’s culture can be distilled into these steps:
Establish a design that reflects community expectation, both near and long term.
Root design considerations in operational requirements that support the needs of the community and the emergency responders.
Pursue a collaborative project process and design response that citizens can rally behind and support, particularly when asked to fund a general obligation bond.
Enhancing Culture: Fire & EMS
Emergency responders have a very unique and stressful job, blending work and living together with fellow comrades. Developing a station that provides for an efficient work flow but also provides for areas to train together, eat together, collaborate, relax and unwind are critical. Space to promote social interactions and space to allow downtime to recharge are uniquely addressed to align and support an agency’s mission and culture. Mackenzie finds it important to develop spaces that gives individuals private areas as well as dynamic spaces that are vibrant and enhance the comradery of the crew.
Enhancing Culture: Law Enforcement
While the bulk of the work law enforcement professionals perform is outside the facility, the working dynamic, support infrastructure, and well-being the building brings to the officers is critical. The culture of a department or agency has a dramatic effect on public perception, internal working relations, officer retention and recruitment, and the dynamics affecting effective policing. At Mackenzie, we believe healthy and productive culture can be supported and strengthened through design. Considerations that enhance culture include:
Communal space for impromptu staff gathering and interaction.
Workplace techniques and modern furniture solutions that enhance communication.
Centralized vertical circulation that promotes staff engagement, visual connection between floors, and daylighting.
Position common spaces such as break rooms, outdoor patios, shared conference rooms, and locker and shower facilities to promote flow and convenience.
Plan space for memorabilia, imagery, and human-centric aspects of the department, to provide meaning, a collective history, and a sense of departmental pride.
1O Points To A Safer Fire Station
Excerpted and condensed from an article by Jeff Humphreys and Brett Hanson in Firehouse Magazine.
The design of essential services and emergency response facilities has long been focused on optimizing first responders’ ability to serve their community. A key, but sometimes overlooked, element of a successful facility is the safety of the responders themselves, and the security facilities that house them. The following are 10 measures to consider for your facility.
1. Dedicated Secure Parking
Whether it is a career, volunteer, or combination facility, opportunities for vandalism and theft can be minimized by separating staff and agency vehicle parking from public parking and publicly accessible areas. Dedicated parking areas for staff are a start, and fenced or walled secure parking areas are even better.
2. Protection of Building Infrastructure
Facility infrastructure like emergency generators, fuel storage, transformers, and communications equipment are often outside the building enclosure. It is best to locate these items out of public view in a secure portion of the site, which might be within the secure parking area, below grade, or in their own protective enclosure.
3. Building Secure Zone
While most facilities want to project a friendly and welcoming atmosphere at the entrance, lobby, and reception desk, it is advantageous to create distinct control points with restricted access doors, solid walls and lockable transaction counters. This can be accomplished at the lobby zone, enabling the public to enter lobby and speak with someone at a reception desk without entering secure staff-only areas.
4. Community Room
Often fire facility training rooms also serve as community rooms. When developing a dual-purpose training/community room, consider having two means of entry: one off the lobby where the public can enter, and a second from the secure portion of the facility.
5. Video Monitoring and Access Control
Digital and/or electronic security measures add a higher level of security and can reduce theft and vandalism. Cameras and electronic locks can serve as an added deterrent against thieves and vandals, and, if the situation arises, provide evidence in the prosecution of suspects.
APP BAY
MEZZANINE
FIRST FLOOR
SECOND FLOOR
Operational Based Design: Fire
A well-designed fire station is based on the operational needs of the facility. There are commonalities between stations but generally no two are alike. Considerations for work flow will dictate adjacencies and drive room type, size and configuration. Thoughtful design focused on details of the station can enhance the functionality, long term durability and flexibility to accommodate evolving technologies, agency growth and safety of staff and occupants of the facility.
1. TRAINING/COMMUNITY ROOM
2. PUBLIC LOBBY WITH DISPLAYS
10. APPARATUS BAY
7. TURNOUT STORAGE
8. REPORT WRITING
9. BUNK ROOMS WITH ALERT SYSTEM
1 3 8 9 10 4 5
7. STAFF PERSONNEL LOCKERS
8. OFFICER REPORT WRITING 6. OFFICER DUTY BAG CUBBIES
Operational Design: Law Enforcement
Building on a foundation of workflow and functionality solutions, Mackenzie’s design team layers in safety and security considerations, with strategies including:
Exterior security goals can be accomplished with Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED). Applications include sight lines, lighting, vehicular protection, and avenues of approach.
Careful delineation of public and medium and high security zones, organized for safety and work flow.
Efficiently location of micro security zones around high security spaces, such as the booking and holding zones, evidence processing and storage, and the armory.
A welcoming plaza or lobby can enhance security by controlling access, sight lines, and approach vectors.
COMMUNITY RESOURCE COMMUNICATIONS /DISPATCH POLICE PROPERTY / EVIDENCE POLICE OPERATIONS DETECTIVES POLICE SUPPORT FUNCTIONS BOOKING / SALLY PORT
18. PHYSICAL FITNESS ROOM
19. DISPATCH
17. ARMORY
QUIET ROOM
20. BRIEFING ROOM
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Architecture, University of Oregon
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Architecture, University of Kentucky
Jeff Humphreys AIA, CSI, GGP, LEED AP BD+C, CPTED
Principal | Architect
With more than 30 years of experience, Jeff has focused his career on the assessment, design and development of fire and police facilities. Jeff has extensive experience with fire districts and police departments and working with stakeholders to usher them through all portions of a project. Jeff has been a speaker at national conferences on station design and has authored numerous articles on design strategies, best practices and project funding for public safety facilities. Jeff served on the International Association of Fire Chief’s Environmental Sustainability Committee and is a board member for the Oregon Fire Chief Foundation.
PROFESSIONAL REGISTRATION
Licensed Architect: WA, OR, ID
LEED Accredited Professional BD+C
Green Globes Professional
Cathy Bowman
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
Oregon Fire Chief Foundation
NCARB, LEED AP BD+C, GGP, WELL AP
Associate Principal | Architect
Cathy is a licensed architect and serves as a project manager on Mackenzie’s public projects team. Since joining Mackenzie, she has focused on emergency response facilities and has worked on more than 20 fire facility projects since 2013. Cathy is managed remodels, seismic upgrades, needs assessments and new construction projects. She is passionate about public safety facilities and regularly participates in state and regional conferences for fire and law enforcement.
PROFESSIONAL REGISTRATION
Licensed Architect: OR, WA
LEED Accredited Professional BD+C
National Council of Architectural
Registration Boards Certification
Green Globes Professional
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
American Institute of Architects
U.S. Green Building Council
DUNDEE
EDUCATION
MBA, George fox University
BS, MS, Civil Engineering; MS, Wood Science & Engineering
Oregon State University
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Arts, Interior Design
Washington State University
David Linton SE, PE
Associate Principal | Director of Project Management | Structural Engineer
David, the director of project management at Mackenzie, has in-depth experience on the structural engineering of complex facilities. He has been the project manager on multiple essential facility seismic assessments. His proven track record of strong communication and collaboration has helped to deliver successful projects that meet client goals while maintaining the project schedule and budget. In addition to his work on public projects
David has been heavily involved in many large, high-tech and office projects.
PROFESSIONAL REGISTRATION
Professional Engineer: CA, OR
Structural Engineer: CA, ID, OR, WA
Alexis Bauer NCIDQ
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
Structural Engineers Association Earthquake Engineering Research Institute
Principal | Interior Designer
Alexis is a principal and senior designer working with Mackenzie since 2004. Alexis works extensively on workplace projects, tenant improvements and building repositioning projects for municipalities and commercial and corporate office clients. Her design work for new construction projects has focused primarily on civic and corporate facilities. Alexis is known for her ability to effectively communicate ideas to clients, contractors, and other Mackenzie designers and staff. She focuses on creating human centered design solutions for her clients.
PROFESSIONAL REGISTRATION
National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ)
LAKE OSWEGO CITY HALL
IN PROGRESS: LYNNWOOD COMMUNITY JUSTICE CENTER
IN PROGRESS: MOLALLA POLICE
IN PROGRESS: MOUNT VERNON FIRE
IN PROGRESS: ST. HELENS POLICE STATION
IN PROGRESS: FOREST GROVE POLICE
IN PROGRESS: SILVERTON CIVIC CENTER
Leaders in Design. Partners in our Community.
Mackenzie is an integrated design firm, with services including architecture; land use planning; interior design; structural, civil, and traffic engineering; transportation planning; and landscape architecture. Every client and every project is approached with a focus reflective of its unique characteristics and goals, from planning for the current and true needs to developing new or replacement facilities that reflect the values and context of the community and required longevity.
Design Services
Site Selection and Evaluation
Master planning
Response Time Studies
Programming
Needs Assessments
Facilities Assessments
Capital Improvement Plan
Seismic Assessments and Grant Pursuits
Conceptual Design
Design for renovations and additions
Design for new construction
Public Outreach
Visioning
Bond Campaign Support
Project Cost Forecasting
Value Engineering
Owner Representation
Constructability Reviews
For more information, please contact:
Jeff Humphreys, AIA, NCARB
Principal | Public Business Leader
P 503.887.2700 E jhumphreys@mcknze.com
Brett Hanson, AIA, NCARB
Principal | Public Business Leader
P 206.618.8713 E bhanson@mcknze.com
Portland, OR Vancouver, WA Seattle, WA Sacramento, CA www.mackenzie.inc/business-unit/civic-public-safety
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