Buj+Colón Arquitectos of Madrid have designed a pharmacy in Palencia, Spain, decorated with large neon symbols illuminating both the interior and exterior.
The designers have also removed the traditional pharmacy counter, placing medications alongside the customers.
Photographs are by Luis Díaz Díaz
More details from the architects below:
Pharmacy at La Puebla 15
What is a pharmacy? The signifier leads us to ponder not only on the word pharmacy, but also on the object and relationships that connect the conscious and unconscious dimensions of the term. Illusion becomes the trigger.
Three questions propel us into action:
Where do we draw the line between reality and the space of illusion?
Can one concentrate this boundary along a zero-thickness plane?
Can light be captured in this space of no thickness?
The experiment begins with the search for an intercalary material capable of capturing the illusion of light.
A material made up of a myriad fibres accumulating on a virtual plane.
Light rushes over it as if it were a massless fluid. Limits are dissolved in a liquid plane.
References to the object disappear. The luminous symbols float in the form of ephemeral traces as abstract elements in the dark.
The project embraces the new demands for relationship and proximity of the customer with the product, breaking away from the classic formula of direct sales and creating an ambiance that places the medication on the same plane as the consumer.
The interior and exterior zones are connected through a first filter that is interrupted to form shop windows, spaces for visual exchange where the façade increases in density and specificity.
These captured voids become magnets to attract the attention of the customer moving in the vicinity of the pharmacy.
Click for larger image
A second filter, designed to showcase the products for sale, will delimit public and private areas, multiplying the relationships between them both.
Click for larger image
Light shines through the programmatic sequence. Space becomes deep once again.
Click for larger image
See also:
.
 |
 |
 |
| Plaza Nueva Pharmacy by MOBIL M |
GKK Dental Ambulatory by Xarchitecten |
More architecture stories |
Immediately made me think of De Lairesse Apotheek in Amsterdam by Concrete.
Great usage of color and light. Very nice project and a really appealing pharmacy.
Almost makes you want to get sick just to have an excuse to visit it.
What kind of pharmacist wears sunglasses? This designer clearly thinks he’s on the set of the next Blade film.
It’s a nice enough design. In the right neighbourhood it might do well, but for me it fails to signify any of the things I’d associate with a good pharmacy. You want reliable, discreet, knowledgeable service. This shop looks like it’s staffed by Bladerunner extras selling gold dust moisturiser and uppers.
I wonder why there isn’t more than one green cross on the exterior. Approaching from the left you’d have little clue what the shop was. Not keen on the proportions of the long thin display window either.
The whole thing hinges on the shop’s ability to display pharmacy goods in the way we normally see jewellery… so it would have been nice to see some photos or renders with actual product in them!
The lighting work is Great!
So simple and beautiful, great work!
Really gives off that clinical, 100% clean look while still keeping it playfull,
the blue pill or the red pill?
i hope that the people in this neighborhood get sick after the sun goes down since there’s little to identify this pharmacy as such during the day
they sell weed?!
in california pot dispensing tradition pharmacies put up a big green cross to indicate that they sell green medications.
When i saw the first pic i thought it was a funeral home.
pharmacy is getting more interesting.these designs are great and futuristic.