(Text from the website of Michielli Wyetzner Architects): The Greenpoint Emergency Medical Service (EMS) Station in Williamsburg, Brooklyn is a new, two-story, 12,400-square-foot facility that is part of an NYC program to improve response times to medical emergencies throughout the city. Located on a prominent site in the growing Brooklyn, NY neighborhood of Williamsburg, it supports the Fire Department of New York ambulance vehicles and crews who have come to consider the station a second home.
The station’s requirements for vehicles and staff led to a four-part organization of the interior. The east side which houses the four ambulances, and a command vehicle requires higher ceilings than the rest of the station and this increase in height helps organize the building’s functions. On the lower west side are the lieutenant’s office, captain’s office, and other administrative spaces. On the second floor above the vehicle bays are locker rooms and bathrooms for the 54 women and 97 men who maintain the station’s three shifts. Across the atrium, to the west, is a fitness facility, training room, and 700-square-foot combined kitchen and lounge area. The first floor’s different ceiling heights repeat at the roofline. The architects mark it with a skylight that extends from the front to the back of the building bringing daylight to the second floor and through an opening in the floor to the ground level. The double-height glass-enclosed entry also marks the division between functions and is filled with natural light.