Mc Donald's Racine
Paris, 2011
Mc Donald’s put Patrick Norguet in charge of designing the new architectural identity of its restaurants in France. An exciting project in terms of its scope as well as in its technical and sociological constraints, since the idea was to help McDonald’s go back to its founding myth as a family fast food restaurant.
While McDonalds was originally created as a family restaurant, its image has slowly become synonymous with urban and adolescent hangout. With this new interior design, Patrick Norguet has restored Mc Donalds' original DNA and taken it back to its roots, both literally and figuratively.
With the branching configuration of the place, this root common to Mc Donald’s and to the family, the plant metaphor is transposed as a transverse and expansive architecture : birch plywood takes root and branches out into the restaurant in order to create different spaces, functions and moods for different requirements, while avoiding a closed-in effect.
The organic and functional furniture and layout caters to different lifestyles and different dining needs – bar-height tables for the lone teenager, lovers' coves, and a table service for families, a small revolution in the form of digital ordering terminals integrated into the roots and scattered throughout the restaurant. Now parents can settle their children in, order from a nearby terminal and wait for the meal to be brought to the table.
In his ever relevant style, Patrick Norguet contrasts contemporary white with playful colors without giving into the toy-like feel. The storage units with the painted metal cubbies included in the root structure are a perfect example of this. The polished design of the light ambiance and acoustics provides customers with an exceptionally comfortable experience, while the materials used - plywood, sheet metal, concrete, etc., previously tested under extreme conditions to meet the needs of such a popular restaurant, give the place a radical feel.
