OPN Architects has received a 2026 Committee on the Environment Top Ten Award from the American Institute of Architects for its design of Marion Fire Station No. 1, making the building the first fire station in the award’s nearly 30-year history to receive the distinction.
The all-electric station uses biophilic design, geothermal systems, and carefully sequenced spaces to meet the AIA’s sustainability criteria for social, economic, and ecological value. The station at 100 Irish Drive in Marion opened in August 2021.
OPN was honored at the AIA Conference on Architecture & Design awards gala June 10 in San Diego.
The AIA’s Committee on the Environment Top Ten Award was founded on the idea that sustainability is essential to design excellence and vice versa, and has become the industry’s best-known award program recognizing innovative projects that integrate exemplary performance with compelling design. Marion Fire Station No. 1 is now one of just four Iowa projects to earn the award since its inception.
The two-level, 21,214-square-foot station was designed at a budget of just under $9 million. The City of Marion challenged OPN to design a station that would serve as a national benchmark for how biophilic design can reduce post-traumatic stress disorder in firefighters. The design draws on 14 patterns of biophilia, incorporating full-height glass in the apparatus bay and living spaces, two exterior decks, a geothermal system, operable windows in all living spaces and offices, and a retention pond that doubles as a stormwater solution and a site for water and ice rescue training.
Strategic sequencing of spaces, including a decontamination clean room between the bays and office and living areas, is intended to reduce firefighter exposure to fire and ash carcinogens. Circadian lighting is used throughout to synchronize firefighters’ sleep-wake cycles with natural light.
“If everybody could work in a place like this, they would be so happy,” said retired Marion fire chief Deb Krebill. “By being in a building that they feel calm and comfortable it helps with relationships as well as their every day stresses.”
The Marion station has accumulated an extensive list of recognition since its opening. It received a national Honor Award from the AIA in 2024 — one of just three Iowa-based firms to win that honor since its founding. Other honors include a 2024 Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Award, a 2024 Fire Industry Education Resource Organization Honor and Wellness Award, the 2023 Stephen R. Kellert Biophilic Design Award, first place in the public building category at the 2023 Rethinking the Future Awards, Government Building of the Year in the 2023 Archello Awards, and a special mention in the 2023 Architizer A+ Awards. It also earned a Justice Facilities Review Award in 2023 — only the second fire station to receive that honor. The first was OPN’s design of Madison Fire Station No. 14, which won in 2020.
At the regional level, the station has received honor awards from the AIA Iowa Chapter in 2021 and 2023 and from the AIA Central States Region in 2022.
The station was featured in the March 2023 issue of Architectural Record and has appeared in the books “Contemporary Architecture: Masterpieces around the World” (Braun, 2022) and the second edition of Terrapin Bright Green’s “The Economics of Biophilia” (2024).
OPN Architects, headquartered in Cedar Rapids, employs more than 110 designers across offices in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota and offers architecture, planning, and interior design services.
