Pot shop esthetic 'could be beautiful,' say designers

There has been much talk of red tape and rules when it comes to the legalization of marijuana in Saskatchewan, but very little about the esthetics of an appealing pot shop.

It's a little bit flower shop, mixed with coffee, mixed with marijuana.- AdreeGoulding, Metric Design Centre

"People will be taken aback by how beautiful and captivating a space like this can be," said Adree Goulding in an interview with CBC Radio's Saskatoon Morning.

"This could exist here and it could be beautiful."

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Forget Cheech, think trendy

Goulding and Tamara Bowman are with Metric Design Centre, which has been working to help two prospective pot shops find shape and form in what may prove to be a competitive market.

"They both wanted a unique, kind of a healthy concept," said Bowman.

You might think legal pot shops will resemble a vision you've pulled out of a Cheech & Chong movie, but the designers suggest you let go of that idea and replace it with something more sophisticated.

"It's a little bit flower shop, mixed with coffee, mixed with marijuana," Goulding said of one of the shops. The other outlet is "trendy, almost as if you go into a really cool art gallery."

Where the two concepts find common ground, Bowman said, is in a desire to not only offer an esthetically pleasing design, but also to build in a comfort level where people will find confidence in being able to ask questions.

"I think that the public is fairly intimidated by this change but I think that the greatest thing that we found, and we are just speaking about our clients' designs, was that their focus was so much on the educational component that it's a safe space to go and to learn in."

From concept to reality

Both the companies that hired Metric were successful in the lottery and will be moving ahead with opening cannabis dispensaries in Saskatchewan. The entire experience has been thrilling for Goulding and Bowman, who had very little knowledge of the pot business as they set out.

"We had to look provincially at what was happening and look at possibly what was going to work here. Even so we were just guessing because a lot of the information was just being released," said Bowman.

"I did do quite a bit of research," added Goulding.

Now the design team is excited about moving the two projects forwardand seeing their concepts and ideas move off paper and take form in a physical space.

"It is actually going to happen, so it's pretty cool," said Bowman.