Community members take virtual reality tour of new Brunswick fire station

BRUNSWICK — Brunswick community members explored the rooms of the new fire station from the front office to the large training room to the apparatus bay in virtual reality on Wednesday. Tim Bement from App Architecture is the principal in charge of the fire station project. He said the design development phase is complete, and Wednesday's virtual reality experience was considered a "test-drive day." "We can produce renderings, but to actually physically be as close as you can in the space and walk around and understand the spatial concepts and aspects of the building is so much more powerful than just looking at two-dimensional representations and pictures of the building," he said. App Architecture started using virtual reality about seven years ago and considers it an integral part of the planning process, Bement said. The construction documents have not been completed yet, so any feedback on the design from the virtual reality participants can still be integrated in the final design. "This technology allows the ultimate users and the customer, which is the city of Brunswick in this case and the fire department, to really understand what they're going to get long before we start construction," he said. The station was designed to fit into a residential space, since it will be at 1094 Hadcock Road, Bement said. For instance, the apparatus bay and the four-story training tower will be placed at the back of the building. "The building fits much more harmoniously with the surrounding neighborhood because we're not looking at a massive structure," he said. "It just has a much nicer scale to fit in." Another design element is a day room and kitchen area created to mitigate post-traumatic stress from calls, Bement said. "How do you process that kind of stress on a daily basis?" he said. "Studies have shown that if we can provide a nice day room, dining and kitchen, these teams can sit back down and talk about what they saw," he said. "(It's) team-building and a way to decompress." The station is also designed to limit exposure to carcinogens, Bement said. The apparatus bay can exhaust diesel fumes quickly, and firefighters can decontaminate after a call in a separate area from their living space. Brunswick voters passed a bond issue last May to build a new, centralized fire station for $12 million. He said the plan is to go out for bidding at the end of May, have a year of construction and open in the summer of 2025. "It's been an amazing experience working with the city of Brunswick and the fire department through this design process," Bement said. "It's very rewarding for us to be designing for first responders and providing these environments for them." Contact reporter Madisyn Woodring at (330) 721-4049 or mwoodring@medina-gazette.com.