The fire brigade bought the Glen Iris site in 2011 for $9 million. Near the freeway, major roads and the railway station, it was a perfect location for getting to emergencies in the surrounding suburbs. Next they hired one of Melbourne's most respected design firms, Architectus​. Architectus spent two years designing and documenting its plans for the new $5 million state-of-the-art centre that, the then chief executive Nick Easy promised, would be "modern and efficient". The fire brigade contracted the Commercial Industrial Construction Group to build the station and, with Architectus overseeing them, they got to work in 2014. But one year later, with most of the new station's structure and roofing complete, major cracking started appearing.

The fire brigade called in engineers Meinhardt. Their verdict? The structural faults, particularly in the concrete yard of the station, had "insufficient load bearing capacity" – in other words, it might not have been strong enough to hold heavy fire trucks. The faults, Meinhardt engineers declared, "could not be rectified and [the fire station] would need to be demolished and rebuilt". Piling meant to be drilled down seven metres appeared only to have been dug to 1.6 metres – leaving a badly unstable building. The fire brigade started demolishing the building in February this year, and it was all but gone by May.

By August, nothing stood on a site where the brigade had poured more than $5 million into building – and then removing – the station. The fire brigade is suing both its architect and its builder in the Supreme Court for costs, damages and a new fire station. All up, it wants $10 million, court filings show: $2.4 million for a temporary fire station it has rented in Malvern, $1 million for Meinhardt and other consultants hired when the works went wrong, and $6.6 million for the demolition and construction of the new fire station now being built on the site. Despite the building's faults, the fire brigade has already paid the Commercial Industrial Construction Group more than $5 million.

And although its work has now been knocked down, the builder isn't admitting it got anything wrong – far from it. Its defence largely blames Architectus for getting the designs wrong, and is demanding $82,000 more from the fire brigade for work it did. Plus it wants a $250,000 bond it gave the brigade before it started the job. While the builder is blaming Architectus' design work, the architects in their defence are largely looking to the various structural and other engineers they commissioned to design the building's slab and other elements of the building. The Age contacted Architectus, the builder and the fire brigade.

Architectus director Mark Wilde declined to discuss the matter in detail because it was before the court. But he said: "While the matter remains in the hands of legal parties, all we can say at this point in time is the claims are engineering and construction-related and that multiple parties are involved." The builder and its lawyer Giannakopoulos Solicitors did not return phone calls. A spokeswoman for the fire brigade said it could not comment because the matter was before the court. The architect, the builder and other defendants are yet to file their response to an amended statement of claim from the fire brigade, filed in July.

When The Age visited the Glen Iris site on Wednesday, construction was underway on the next fire station to be built. It will open in 2018 – assuming everything goes to plan.