Architectural Digest — "Neighborhood Watch"

“For the past 23 years, architect Jeanne Gang has steadily grown a practice rooted in community engagement. At Studio Gang’s latest project, a state-of-the-art Brooklyn firehouse and training facility, she explains how great design can serve the greater good.

Jeanne Gang is sitting in the new home of FDNY Rescue Company 2 in Brownsville, Brooklyn, talking with a bunch of its members. They are telling her what they like most about the building: its stainless-steel kitchen, its oversize skylight, and its ample wall space for displaying photos of the fallen. It is an inviting home . . . but it is also packed with surprises. Because it serves as a training facility, it has a 45-foot-tall atrium with a climbing wall that simulates building exteriors; a manhole leading to a chamber that can fill with fake smoke; an elevator that can be set to malfunction; and other features on which to practice missions.

But Gang designed the building with more than disasters in mind. She also gave it a welcoming façade accented by bright-red terra-cotta tiles, with cutouts that convey transparency and a built-in bench where company members and locals can sit and get to know one another. ‘It’s all about the relationship between the rescue workers and their neighbors,’ says Gang.”