It goes without saying that the architecture and imagery of McDonalds is perfectly calibrated to answer a very complex and constantly evolving set of desires and aspirations. Everyone knows how all-encompassing a visit to McDonalds can be. However, that ubiquitous experience is about to undergo a significant shift.
Under the banner of a design concept termed "Forever Young," McDonald's is remodelling about half of its 13,700 U.S. restaurants in the coming year. Keyed into the popularity of a lounge/living room atmosphere popularized by Starbucks and other coffee chains, the muted colors and designer finishes entice people to linger:
The room is subdued, its booths and overstuffed chairs upholstered in earthy beige or brown faux leather or other fabrics and separated by partitions topped by curved, silver-colored railings. The prints on the walls are tasteful – if arty – the hanging lights muted. Modern designer tiles cover the floor and walls. Customers in a music zone section listen to the latest tunes under sound domes, surf the audio channels on wall units or access the Internet on their laptops through the Wi-Fi system. Above it all, a flat screen TV beams the latest news from CNN. Welcome to Ronald McDonald's lounge.
(Or just "MD Lounge.")
Gone are the earth-toned plastic banquettes, and most of the playgrounds. In its place, a "McThirdPlace" neighborhood hangout of sorts, with community meeting rooms and 24-hour news that offers "an escape from normal frenetic fast-food noise and clutter."
To me, "Forever Young" poses some issues about the nature of semi-public space, present everywhere from shopping malls to chain coffeeshops around the world. What is being lost or gained here?
This is truly bizarre. McDonalds has spent so much money on research and advertising to entice the REALLY young into their stores (i.e., Happy Meals and clowns and such) but now they are interested in a whole new type of young. Maybe they want us to enjoy our youth since eating at McDonalds will also enable us to die young...
More interesting in this shift is that fast food restaurants are inherently designed so that you DON'T linger. People frequent fast food restaurants when they supposedly don't have time and just want a fast bite and then to move on...Will they change the menu again so that it offers more foods that are more encouraging to linger with?
Posted by: Balloon Lady | 03/23/2006 at 14:35
Yes, I agree with Balloon Lady that this image shift from "eat and run" (or "eat in your car") to "come and linger" is interesting, especially since one of the articles you cited mentions that 60% of McDonald's traffic is from Drive-Up service. Maybe the slow food movement has insinuated itself into mainstream culture, leading us to think that fast isn't cool anymore. Yes, maybe slow is the new fast.
Posted by: Sonia | 03/23/2006 at 17:53
Hmm. I agree with you both. The only thing that I liked about McDonalds was that it was made completely of hard plastic that could be hosed down once in a while. Soft couches covered with french fry grease. Gross.
Posted by: boomy | 03/23/2006 at 19:40
Not to make the same point again ( http://brandavenue.typepad.com/brand_avenue/2006/03/mclofts_and_mem.html )
but this has been going on in Australian McDonalds stores for a while. A couple of architecture and design magazines over here even 'featured' the new interiors (payola, anyone?).
As the McDonalds website's navigation is like finding a needle in a ballpit, I've posted some images in a Flickr account:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/77057785@N00/archives/date-posted/2006/03/24/
I think few of these redesigns do much more than Ikea-ise the spaces, but there's certainly a more interesting aesthetic at play (!) than the hose-it-down plastic era. Or perhaps that's the impression they're cynically trying to convey ("we're interested, involved, intriguing, progressive, aesthetically refined" etc.)
Posted by: Ben | 03/24/2006 at 07:36
Ben, thanks for posting these pictures. They are amazing. It's fascinating to see how a corporate behemoth absorbs "high design" sophistication(and Sonia, how McDonalds could be latching in its own way onto the Slow Food movement) into its aesthetics and experience, elsewhere.
One of the things that has always struck me about McDonalds, despite its ubiquity and streamlining, is how it relates to some sense of what's local around the world, through the food. Does this mean that design has become more of a consumer product than before, and if so, what does that portend for designers?
Posted by: Chris | 04/01/2006 at 09:01