In Hayward, Calif., the city has just broken ground on a new and unique project: a fire station with a health clinic built in, CityLab reports.
Designed by WRNS Studio, the Firehouse Clinic will encourage local residents with limited healthcare access to consider them as an alternative to the emergency room, especially for preventive care.
To further this goal, the clinic will stay open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays, and patients are guaranteed appointments within 72 hours of their request. While the clinic will share the fire station's property, the building will be separate. With seven exam rooms and 2,400 sf, the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency expects 5,000 new patients to come through the clinic in its first two years.
"Essentially the idea is that fire stations, and fire fighters, are a trusted entity in the neighborhood," said Kyle Elliott, partner at WRNS Studio in San Francisco. "There's an EMT on site, typically, in a fire house. It makes a good symbiotic relationship to place a clinic adjacent to a fire house."
WRNS Studio's initial design was considered for multiple stations in Alameda County, given that it assumed an available parcel of land next to the fire station. According to Elliott, the firm hopes to encourage this model in other communities, since every community has a fire house and needs healthcare.
"Our job was to crystallize a vision, not the vision, and to articulate the guidelines and principles to think about," Elliott said. "There were discussions about investigating something added onto an existing building, or reusing a part of an existing building. Those are very plausible solutions for communities."
Related Stories
| May 31, 2012
2011 Reconstruction Awards Profile: Ka Makani Community Center
An abandoned historic structure gains a new life as the focal point of a legendary military district in Hawaii.
| May 31, 2012
5 military construction trends
Defense spending may be down somewhat, but there’s still plenty of project dollars out there if you know where to look.
| May 31, 2012
New School’s University Center in NYC topped out
16-story will provide new focal point for campus.
| May 31, 2012
Day & Zimmermann taps Jobe for ECM VP
Ken Jobe, a senior executive with 30+ years of industry-related experience, joins Day & Zimmermann to expand footprint in the process & industrial markets.
| May 31, 2012
Perkins+Will-designed engineering building at University of Buffalo opens
Clad in glass and copper-colored panels, the three-story building thrusts outward from the core of the campus to establish a new identity for the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the campus at large.
| May 30, 2012
Construction milestone reached for $1B expansion of San Diego International Airport
Components of the $9-million structural concrete construction phase included a 700-foot-long, below-grade baggage-handling tunnel; metal decks covered in poured-in-place concrete; slab-on-grade for the new terminal; and 10 exterior architectural columns––each 56-feet tall and erected at a 14-degree angle.
| May 30, 2012
Pringle Brandon in discussions to join forces with Perkins+Will
The London offices would be known as Pringle Brandon Perkins+Will.
| May 30, 2012
Boral Bricks announces winners of “Live.Work.Learn” student architecture contest
Eun Grace Ko, a student at the Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, named winner of annual contest.
| May 30, 2012
Hill International to manage construction of Al Risafa Stadium in Iraq
The three-year contract has an estimated value to Hill of approximately $3.3 million.
