Bronx EMS ambulance station

POSTED ON: 01.21.2009

The state-of-the-art facility for FDNY's EMS 27 will be a significant new civic building-and the home base for the six ambulance crews serving Woodlawn, Riverdale and Kingsbridge has been designed under the Design Excellence Program of New York City's Department of Design and Construction.The trapezoidal volume of EMS 27 perches at the summit of 233rd street, an industrial corridor in the northern Bronx that threads between the park-like Woodlawn Cemetery and the modest low-rise residential neighborhood behind. Rising above the adjacent vacant lots and industrial buildings, it surveys the environs.

POSTED ON: 01.21.2009

An undulating zinc cladding opens and closes to form louvers that allow for light and views where needed. It stops short of the base of the building revealing a solid masonry core. This material dichotomy is reflected inside in the contrasting needs of equipment and people. This system of zinc walls allows the smaller scale of the neighborhood facade to be distinct from the more monumental reading of the public face on 233rd street.

POSTED ON: 01.21.2009

The design uses the property's limited footprint to its advantage, accommodating the complex program in two interlocking functional blocks joined in each pair by a double story space. The double-height apparatus floor, holding the ambulances and their utility storage, is overlooked by a mezzanine with offices and personnel areas that hover within the space. The locker room floor has the double story connection to the dining and meeting spaces of the penthouse. Carving through and connecting these joined functions is an intertwining color-coded scissor stairs. This circulatory core extends above the main roof, where it becomes both access and armature for the penthouse lounge resting atop the neighborhood.

POSTED ON: 01.21.2009

"EMS 27 in The Bronx is an important and elegant piece of civic architecture in the DDC's Design Excellence initiative and will be a wonderful contribution to the skyline of this neighborhood"
Bogdan Pestka, AIA Assistant Commissioner DDC