Studio Aisslinger designs retro-futuristic apothecary in Berlin

Analogue influences pair with futuristic technologies in Studio Aisslinger's new Apotheke pharmacy at the Schultheiss Quartier in Berlin, Germany.

The design team – comprising Werner Aisslinger, Laura Dervishi, Monika Losos, and Julia Walk – is accutely aware that, in the age of social media, every interior is a canvas for DIY photography – even your local pharmacy. Berlin-based Studio Aisslinger is becoming renowned for its ability to create photogenic spaces, like its ‘designer food court’, which opened earlier this year. Likewise at Apotheke, the team was keen to imbue the space with a sense of character – from every angle – for client Heike Zweydinger, who is head of the premium pharmacy (and ‘luckily a design fan’, says Aisslinger), known for exploring progressive retail architecture models for his stores.

A midcentury-inspired palette of muted browns, greens and creams wrap the space in a warm nostalgia, and, says the designer, instills an ‘aura of trust' necessary for a place where medical advice, and medicines, are dispensed. Meanwhile, glass brick walls offer a rare and ‘translucid' look between the drug store and the laboratory behind it, enhancing the transparency necessary between pharmacist and customer.

A high tech touch, the drug store is an automated one, which is becoming increasingly common in newly-designed pharmacies. Centrally placed, a speedy robot arm moves up and down the shelves picking and delivering medicines with efficiency and precision (though, of course, everything is double checked by a human pharmacist prior to sale).

Of this balance between new and old, human with machine, Studio Aisslinger explains: ‘We create spaces that don’t deny the opportunities of digitalisation, and yet secure the possibility of true sociability through their analogue, haptic and visual quality; spaces of unpretentious co-existence with the most advanced technologies.’

INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Studio Aisslinger website