Brick Pharmacy MOC: Green Cross, Counter & Shelves Guide
A pharmacy is the reassurance anchor of any street scene — one bright green cross and everyone knows exactly what the building is. In this brick pharmacy MOC guide I'll go through the sign, the checkout counter and the medicine shelving one piece at a time, so you can finish a corner drugstore that reads clearly from the sidewalk and holds up when you look inside.
1. Choosing a Plan and Overall Layout
Plan and Footprint
When you pick a brick pharmacy MOC plan, aim for something in the 1,700–2,300 piece range, with a 16×16 stud footprint and two floors. The functional split is what makes a pharmacy easy to build: the ground floor is the retail area (counter, shelves, register) and the upper floor can be a pharmacist's workroom or a small apartment. Circulation is simple, which makes this one of the friendliest first street-scene buildings for a beginner.
Parts List
The main structure needs roughly 650 white bricks and plates for the exterior walls, about 250 light gray plates for the floor and base, around 40 green transparent elements plus green bricks for the cross, about 50 transparent plates for the display window and shelf glass, and a handful of printed elements (medicine boxes, cash register, door sign).
2. The Green Cross Sign: Soul of the Storefront
Building the Sign
The green cross is the core of the store's identity. Build the cross shape from 2×2 green bricks plus white plates: three studs across and three studs down, with a single green brick at the center and the four arms filled out with green 2×2 bricks. Fix a white 2×2 plate to the front face as a highlight. The sign can sit flat above the door lintel, or you can turn it into a boxed lightbox: add a layer of transparent green plate behind it and embed a light strip so green light spills out at night and the sign is visible from the far end of the street.
Lightbox Structure
If you go with the boxed version, wrap 4×4 white frame elements around the perimeter, set a cross made of green transparent plates into the front, close the back with a white reflector plate, and leave a small opening on the side for the power cable. The sign ends up both eye-catching and layered — easily the most striking detail in the whole pharmacy MOC.
3. Checkout Counter and Medicine Shelves
The Checkout Counter
On the ground floor, run an L-shaped counter along the wall. Use light gray tile plates for the countertop, white plates on the front face, and place the cash register at the corner (gray base plus a printed screen element). Leave a 2×4 gap in front of the counter for a minifigure, and stand the pharmacist — white coat and stethoscope accessory — behind it. The scene reads as professional immediately.
The Medicine Shelves
Shelving is the main body of the interior. Build one run against each of three walls: off-white plates for the uprights, transparent plates for the shelf boards. Each level holds medicine boxes (small white box elements with colored label prints) and bottles (colored 1×1 round elements). Set a few larger bottles on top of the runs — cylinder elements with white caps — at staggered heights so the display looks convincing. Keep two studs of clearance between shelf runs so minifigures can reach in for a prescription.
4. Color Scheme and Facade Design
The pharmacy palette is white plus green, with green reserved for the cross and small accents only — awning stripes, the door frame. The result stays clean and fresh, and it contrasts nicely with a pink dessert shop next door, giving the whole street more depth. On the second floor, add a window with a cross motif, or park two planters on the sill (green 1×1 elements in pots) to break up the large white surface. A small awning over the entrance works well: white base, green edging, echoing the sign above.
5. Interior Details and Minifigure Interaction
The bonus points in a brick pharmacy MOC all come from details: a scale by the door (white plate plus a round printed dial), a printed service-hours tile stuck to the side of the counter, a vending machine in the shelf corner (dark gray panel, transparent door, a few medicine boxes stacked inside). Add warm white lighting and the counter and shelves are lit up — in a late-night street scene the pharmacy becomes a small reassuring lamp. For more pharmacy and neighboring shop MOC plans, head to brickplan.cn and search the pharmacy or street-scene categories for downloadable high-resolution plans.
6. Common Problems and Reinforcement Tips
The boxed cross lightbox is fairly heavy, so when you mount it above the door lintel, add a 2×4 beam behind it for support. If shelf boards span an open gap, put a 1×1 support at each end of every level so the boards can't collapse. Green transparent elements and solid green bricks are not the same color — keep them separate when you build the lightbox instead of mixing them. Once it's done, check from the front that the sign is centered and the shelf runs are level, and your tidy pharmacy is finished.