Solana Beach Fire Station

VDLA teamed with local artist Betsy K. Schultz and design-builder Gravel to Gold in a creative and collaborative effort to develop the unique “Fire Wall” concept that provides the City of Solana Beach with a striking artistic landmark along Lomas Santa Fe Avenue. The design can be enjoyed from the perspectives of passing motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians. The landscape tells the story of the “Firewall.” It integrates examples of regional fire safety principles where a native landscape plant community abuts man-made development. The concept also uses landscape as art with colorful drought-resistant plantings appropriate to coastal Solana Beach to frame and complement the Fire Wall sculpture. The landscape at the Fire Wall will consist of fire-retardant plants that echo the fire theme with various colorful succulents and perennials forming “flames” that dance and flicker in the background, forming strong colorful patterns on the ground plane. The ten-foot-high sculpture is a corten steel gabion filled with colored glass and is lit internally to accent the sculpture at night.