Prescription: an innovative dose of design

Back in the 1940s, the drugstore sat in the hub of town, a meeting and socializing place, an apothecary, a café and a dispenser of essential and sometimes even exotic imported merchandise. Gentlemen played checkers, kids sucked on sassafras candy sticks and mom waited patiently while the apothecary hand-mixed medications. Coca-Cola chairs with wooden seats and curved wire backs sat at marble-topped tables in the ice cream parlor and café. Overhead, wooden paddle fans cooled the air. Purchases ranged from bedpans and canes to newfangled miracle drugs like the just-discovered cortisone to bottles of remedies and tonics to fancy parfums and bath powders from Paris.

A mere decade or so later, when the suburban expansion wave began in America, drugstores followed homes to the suburbs, and the nature of the drugstore changed. Drugstores became simplified, cost-efficient boxes with glass fronts, designed primarily for speedy construction. Photo services, modern-day pharmacies, vast cosmetics departments and convenience store line-ups of foods and cold case goods were added. They began to proliferate, and today, there's a drugstore on almost every corner.

Exterior drugstore architecture struggled for identity, adding brick facing, awnings, corner entrances and towers, but the only major change to drugstore interiors since the 1950s has been the removal of the lunch counter, which had evolved over time from the ice cream parlor or soda fountain. And now, drugstores have become one of the most generic retail formats in the country.

It's time to bring the drugstore into the new century. So, why aren't CVS or Walgreens or Rite Aid doing something about it?

DDI magazine invited four retail design firms to re-think and redesign the drugstore. In DDI's Design Challenge 2002, the firms were given two months to work on the project.

There were no budgets and no limitations. Each firm was free to be as imaginative and creative as they wished. Here are the results of their efforts: four brand new drugstore concepts that point the way to the future.

For all of the variety and distinction exhibited, it seems there were three ideas on which all for firms agreed. First: Rounder is friendlier. Curves prevail and space frees up and flows generously, leaving the banality of the "box" far behind. Second, there is agreement that the emphasis should be on a holistic approach to health and well-being, including sensory and therapeutic experiences—in some cases moving closer to a spa-like environment where customers can relax and rejuvenate. And third, the "high-touch," personal approach is imperative—with confidential, qualified advice from well-trained professionals on hand.

Would customers find these stores more to their liking? See what you think.

Sidebar 1
Chute Gerdeman acknowledges the drugstore's dominant customer with a woman-centric shopping experience


Sidebar 2
Aedifica sees a health-smart drugstore as the wave of the future


Sidebar 3
The Retail Group's Pharmalogica visulaizes medical brands extending into retail


Sidebar 4
RYA holds the secrets to the Good Life in its design


Sidebar 5
An economic snapshot