Our client demanded the whole reformulation of the Pharmacy, with no constraints except these three: to keep the main structure of the building; one and a half months of construction; it had to remain open to public.
The client wanted a new innovative and strong image, so it would become its identity and unforgettable for its clients, with a reasonable total budget of 100000,00€ for 80 square meters.
There are two different areas, the public area and the private area. The aim, was to create two areas with different identities and simultaneously allow the free communication – visual and physical – between them.
We wanted clients to understand the entire reality of the Pharmacy beyond the customer sector. For this we imagined a glass membrane which allows the client to follow the pharmacist when he is searching his medicines.
We decided to try a ‘colour box’ over the customer area. The other areas, reserved for the pharmacy’ workers should be clean, sober and white.
We decided to introduce text lines which would eye catch the attention for the shop. Putting letters on walls, ceiling and floor is that people tend to follow text written, and they will look to all the surfaces of the store, having an idea of the whole Pharmacy. This also strengths continuity between horizontal and vertical surfaces.
Farmácia Henriques is the pharmacy’s name. It is simple and clear as a message and will remain easily on people’s mind.
Another challenge was placing counters behind the entrance, allow us to experiment a new concept of circuits in the shop, with clients and pharmacists crossing in the same space. When entering the store, customers will first face products’ exhibition and have then to turn to counters to buy these products, having a glance at the entire Pharmacy.
To make the floor construction – the coloured letters - BASF launched locally a new floor made with epoxy resins, with these characteristics.
All the other materials used are common. All the walls and ceilings are in common bright paint and the orange letters on the orange ‘box’ are made of sticker paper (vinyl). All the transparent surfaces are tempered glass fixated to walls with stainless steel, made specifically for this construction.
The lettering was supplied by a local company named Grafite.
The shelves are adapted to the walls on which they stand. Therefore, on the glass walls they are light and slim like the glass and on the orange walls they are opaque in the same colour of the wall.
The lighting on the office and the private room used Herzog & de Meuron designed lamps sold by Artemide.
On the customer area we used hidden high-power light spots working as an up-light. On the private area the lighting was reverted using small discrete OSRAM lamps on the ceiling working as down-light.