Popup Pharmacy
The Prompt
In interviews conducted bus riders, household errands were the hardest trips to make due to the alignment between transportation networks and business centers. This fact echoed a larger personal commuter trend in the U.S. showing personal errands and non-work commutes are the majority of trips made by both bus and car.
The Project
I came up with the idea to bring commute destination closer to people’s point of origin: their homes. Among the various common household chores (grocery shopping, dining out, visiting a doctor, going to the hardware store, etc), pharmaceutical drugs stood out to me as small, mobile, but imperative items to bring into a community.
The Research
- Researched barriers and restrictions surrounding drug processing, movement, sales, and distribution
- Interviewed pharmacists to understand the retail prescription process
- Prototyped small-scale physical pop-up installations
- Referenced contemporary commuter data trends, as well as supply chain and logistics processes
The idea
Front door delivery of pharmaceuticals is already being pursued by venture groups like Amazon and Capsule. While these services may remove unwanted experiences like waiting in line, prescriptions running out, and commuting, they also have the potential to increase the amount of freight vehicles on neighborhood roads, which tend to be older, bigger, heavier, and don’t conform to the same fuel standards as personal automobiles. I chose to focus instead on the idea of the bike-powered popup pharmacy to promote walkable neighborhoods and sustainable transportation, while still meeting residents where they live.
the results
The final form for this speculative project was a feasibility study specific to Austin, Texas, but it can serve as a playbook for planning place-specific community events. Read the Popup Pharmacy Feasibility Study.