Centerapotheke St. Pölten

here the 'centerapotheke' in the nice austrian st. pölten, by purpur
no garden but a 2nd level...or a hub or a pod or whatevva...

Design of a pharmacy in a shopping centre
While passing innumerable booths the eye rapidly registers one interior life after another: the shopping centre functions in this simple and serial way. Whereas in a shopping street the facades and the views of the distance compete for the pedestrians´ attentions, indoor retail areas generally go no further than offering a rapidly changing microcosm of different interior lives.
Instead of placing the sales area behind a threshold the Center Apotheke [pharmacy] sucks its customers inwards. The mall space is continued into the pharmacy, the asymmetric form of the plan, defined by continuous shelving elements, is oriented on the principal direction of the flow of customers. As a metaphor for a pharmacist´s white coat the fronts are upholstered in artificial white leather, horizontal slits, like pockets, reveal the products that are presented in backlit niches.

Only a few selected items are allotted a role as ´teasers´ to attract customers, for the small size of the unit made space-saving a priority. The heart of the pharmacy is therefore ´off stage´: a completely automated storeroom - with soundproof insulation - is connected with the cash register. At the press of a button an arm speeds off on its search for the required medication [using air pressure as well as mechanical means] and delivers it to a slot where it slides down a stainless steel channel to arrive at its destination.

So that passers-by in the Mall can also see something of this state-of-the-art technology the medicine storeroom is part of the display front - if you press your nose against the glass pane you can satisfy your curiosity about what is going on inside. But the logistics of the pharmacy business are also applied where they are no longer externally visible. Each square centimetre and each minute of the working process is minutely utilised: from deliveries to the automatic sorting system, nothing is left to chance.

And all necessary measures have already been taken to replace the night service system through the so-called unstaffed vis-à-via system at some time in the future. Nighttime customers will be able to communicate by image and sound with the pharmacist on duty who, even from his own home, can give a command and dispatch the required product from the storeroom. A few seconds later a small dispatch window opens in the facade and the packet of aspirin [or whatever] slides out into the night.