Competition | San Francisco Fire Department Headquarters, a Proposal by The Open Workshop

San Francisco Fire Department Headquarters is a proposal by The Open Workshop for the Fire Department Headquarters Competition, San Francisco.

The Open Workshop is a multidisciplinary architecture firm that aims at exploring the concept of an open work, first coined by Umberto Ecco, through the intersection of architecture, urbanism and landscape design. I'm planning an email conversation with his founder Neeraj Bhatia, also founder of Petropia, member of InfraNet Lab (with Lateral Office's Lola Sheppard), author of the forthcoming book The Petropolis of Tomorrow (co-edited by Mary Casper), and co-editor (with Lola Sheppard) of the second volume Bracket.

I am curious about Bhatia's practice within these structures and his research on infrastructure, more specifically on social infrastructure, and related topics. As we will see, Neeraj Bhatia elaborates a new form of practice based on the integration of architecture, landscape, infrastructure and urbanism. In addition, he addresses the interrelations of the human system and the ecological system, the local and the global, the transformation of territories for industrial purposes. The conversation will be focusing on two projects among his growing projects within respectively Petropia and The Open Workshop: Oil Endpires and Recon-Figure.

Below The Open Workshop's entry he just shared on archinect for the San Francisco Fire Department Headquarters Competition:

Inflected Frontality
A fire station typically has two distinct zones — one that reaches outwards to the city and acts as a monumental symbol of protection, and one that contains the hidden inner workings of the station. In a large headquarters, with a diverse set of programs each with their own unique spatial requirements, such a strategy untenable. Instead this proposal divides select components of the fire station and arrays them onto the pier to activate two zones — a surface and a voided room. Seeking definition in an expansive site, the pier's rectangular depression, which was originally a slip, offers a formal and organizational axis around which all built form oscillates. These zones are separated by a manifold façade that inflects its form to establish an understanding of the site as always in the bound to the center, reaching both outwardly and inwardly, and challenging a clear understanding of a 'front' façade. Instead, our proposed façade inflects to reveal the inner workings of the fire station as well as its monumental civic image the create a multifaceted headquarters that involves the city's residents into the life of the station.

And a few images of The Open Workshop's entry:

San Francisco Fire Department Headquarters, Competition, 2013 | Courtesy of © The Open Workshop
> Rendering of the Station from Embarcadero
Image initially appeared on archinect

San Francisco Fire Department Headquarters, Competition, 2013 | Courtesy of © The Open Workshop
> Birdseye/ Wormseye Axonometric
Image initially appeared on archinect

San Francisco Fire Department Headquarters, Competition, 2013 | Courtesy of © The Open Workshop
> Building Plan
Image initially appeared on archinect

San Francisco Fire Department Headquarters, Competition, 2013 | Courtesy of © The Open Workshop
> Inflected Space vs. Form
Image initially appeared on archinect

San Francisco Fire Department Headquarters, Competition, 2013 | Courtesy of © The Open Workshop
> Pier Plan
Image initially appeared on archinect

San Francisco Fire Department Headquarters, Competition, 2013 | Courtesy of © The Open Workshop
> Program vs. Facade Diagram
Image initially appeared on archinect

San Francisco Fire Department Headquarters, Competition, 2013 | Courtesy of © The Open Workshop
> Rendering of Interior inscribed zone
Image initially appeared on archinect

San Francisco Fire Department Headquarters, Competition, 2013 | Courtesy of © The Open Workshop
> View looking North
Image initially appeared on archinect

San Francisco Fire Department Headquarters, Competition, 2013 | Courtesy of © The Open Workshop
> Concept Diagram
Image initially appeared on archinect

Source: archinect