Fire station | Calvados, France | 2025

Category: Industrial
Architect: Antoine Le Metayer, France
Architecture Office: Sammen
Lead Architect: Antoine Le Metayer and Axel Mak
Design Team: Antoine Le Metayer and Axel Mak
Client: SDIS Calvados
Photographer: RenLab      

The project examines the demolition of the existing garages and the reconstruction on the same site of a building housing fire engines, changing rooms, and a fitness room, aimed at improving staff working conditions and operational facilities. The aim was to provide the staff with better working conditions and facilities more suited to the performance of their duties.

The building’s volume was predefined by the height required for the appliance bay and the vehicles. In order to ensure optimized functionality and a softer integration into the landscape, we proposed a square footprint. We also chose to locate the fitness room on a mezzanine level in order to obtain a cubic building with the most neutral form possible. This choice was dictated by the very specific context of the town center of Pont-d’Ouilly. Indeed, it is characterized by a wide variety of materials and disparate volumes. 

The neutrality expressed by the building makes it possible not to conflict with this context, while still retaining the markers of an industrial building specific to fire stations. In order to limit the overall height of the building, we opted for a roof assembly allowing for a low pitch, so as not to alter the urban landscape of the town center or the various views from the surrounding neighborhood.

The facades are composed of two horizontal layers. The lower layer is fully opaque and clad in white metal paneling. This allows the interior facades to be used for storage and equipment within the fire and rescue center. The upper horizontal layer is largely transparent through the use of standing-seam polycarbonate. 

This layer provides a significant amount of natural daylight as well as visual contact between the mezzanine fitness room and the exterior. It also reflects the firefighters’ desire to be more visible in relation to the town center. The entire structural frame of the building is made of timber and is laid out on a regular grid over a quarter of the building. This timber structure contributes to creating a warmer atmosphere and reinforces the functional, modular expression of the building.

The complex insertion within this dense town center emerged as a key issue in our design approach, which is why the building is intended to remain sober and discreet. This is expressed through a set of details in which the joinery has been concealed, and the color palette has been kept focused on white and wood.