The City of Mississauga continues to expand. Considering the many community services required to improve and maintain the quality of life of its inhabitants, the City has acquired a site at 5329 Ninth Line and intends to construct a fire station facility – Fire Station 101 – with adjacent sports and park areas to better service the developing community of the west end.
The project comprises two major elements. The first of architectural content, is the fire station itself. The second, of urban and landscape content, is the developed site, with a complete urban infrastructure of outdoor amenities with varied ambiances for recreational and educational use of the fire department staff and the community. It comprises park areas, a community garden, a sports courts with seating area, walking and biking trails and a ludic sculpture park.
The design intent behind the fire station site planning aligns with the Shaping Ninth Line vision. The Ninth Line Neighborhood is Mississauga's final remaining greenfield area, and it will be designed to be sustainable, transit-friendly, connected, and different. The Ninth Line Neighborhood shall serve as a paradigm for sustainable development as well as a gateway into Mississauga. The neighborhood will be built with a strong emphasis on the value of the natural environment (Mississauga, Shaping the Ninth Line Urban Design Guidelines, 2017), and so will Fire Station 101 and its site.
As to promote “sustainable storm water management [through] natural infiltration and retention of rainwater” (Mississauga, Site Plan Application: Process Guidelines, 2017), various Low Impact Development (LID) practices were implemented in the project, such as permeable pavements, bioretention and rain gardens, infiltration trenches, healthy soils, and a 530 sq. meters storm water management pond behind the fire station. An 8-meter-wide, 1.3-meter-high landscape grass berm (33.3% slope) was incorporated along the southwest and southeast portions of the site. Deciduous and medium sized coniferous trees were selected to constitute the landscaping of the berm zone, to protect the site from the traffic noise off the Highway 407. These trees were also selected for the landscaping of the site, for sun protection of the urban equipment and the building.
As for the building form and design concept, we started with a basic rectangular shape, followed by the extrusion of the apparatus bay section. From there, the building was divided into sections, and these sections were pushed in and out as to translate into a dynamic composition. The diagonal lines were added as a final touch to the design. They can be perceived at the apparatus bay northeast walls and roof, and at the station tower, centerpiece of the building. The design motif was, therefore, a modest expression of diagonality, “the deliberate and intentional use of oblique lines, angular shapes, and crystalline forms” (Levinson, 2020).
In the final submission, the following had been developed: Site Statistics, OBC and Zoning analysis, Partition Schedule, Life Safety Plan, Site Plan, Ground Floor plan, Roof Plan, Elevations (four), Sections (two), Wall Sections (five), Details (eleven), Reflected Ceiling plan, Room finishes and door schedules. Find the final working drawing package under "download" below.
