Archinect - News

The glory days of fast food architecture may be gone forever

2023-02-21T19:10:00-05:00

Goodbye bright colors and unusual shapes. Today, the design is minimal and sleek. Most fast-food restaurants are built to maximize efficiency, not catch motorists’ attention. One critic has called this trend “faux five-star restaurants” intended to make customers forget they are eating greasy fries and burgers. The chains now sport nearly identical looks. Call it the gentrification of fast-food design.

The psychologically manipulative color schemes may remain, but fast food’s once-iconic Googie and mid-century modern designs are quickly being swapped out for more monolith structures. Changes caused by the pandemic and technology are the largest factors, along with the rise in popularity of drive-thru-only chains.

If it goes on unabated, the America your children grow up in could become one vast dystopic warren of bland 5-over-1s, converted strip malls, Amazon fulfillment centers, these unhealthy slat facade Wendy’s stores, and the occasional mass timber luxury tower attainable exclusively to the very rich and well-connected.

A historic McDonald's makeover in the heart of Moscow is Landini's latest innovative menu item

2022-01-12T17:00:00-05:00

One of the more underrated landmarks of 20th-century geopolitics has undergone a complete transformation into a mirrored elevation of the surrounding community thanks to the latest in a global series of innovative redesign projects from Landini Associates for McDonald’s.

To mark its 30th year of operation in the former Soviet capital of Moscow, McDonald’s asked the Australian-based firm to remake the historic Pushkin Square restaurant into a more modern and experimental space that would double as the company’s Russian flagship and the home of a special initiative called Project Ray.

Photography by Anton Voronkov

Named after founder Ray Kroc’s vision to create a respectful and quiet space for people to take a dignified break from the every day, the project’s brief has meant reimagining the restaurant as a service point in heavily trafficked urban environments in order to be more appealing to a millennial consumer base. This has brought new spaces from La...

Italy blocks McDonald's from building drive-through at Rome's ancient Baths of Caracalla

2022-01-04T13:40:00-05:00

Italy’s highest administrative court has definitively barred McDonald’s from building a 10,000 sq. m outlet in the shadow of the third-century Baths of Caracalla, one of Rome’s most celebrated ancient sites. Published on 28 December, the council of state’s ruling upheld the verdict of a lower court preventing the fast food chain from using a tract of land adjacent to the baths to open a drive-through restaurant and parking area.

The court also stated that government authorities are entitled to halt future development projects in or around other important heritage sites. As reported by The Art Newspaper, the Lazio region and the Italian culture ministry can now suspend works in not only existing heritage sites but in locations that authorities “intend to protect”, which have yet to be declared of cultural or landscape interest.

McDonald’s had already started building the drive-through after being approved by the ministry of culture. However, the project was stopped in 2019 following a media outcry and the ministry of culture’s reversal of its position. McDonald’s plans to open 200 new restaurants in Italy by 2025.

New restaurant designs are betting big on drive-thrus to cope with pandemic

2020-12-04T13:54:00-05:00

The pandemic accelerated a need for digital menu boards, artificial intelligence, expanding drive-thrus into dual lanes and adding drive-thru only units where available. Many other fast food restaurants like Wendy's, Taco Bell, Del Taco, Burger King, KFC and McDonald's have also shown interest in developing many of these concepts.

With indoor dining areas closed in many, if not most, restaurants since the beginning of the pandemic, the nation's fast food and fast casual franchises are rethinking fundamental design concepts of their operations that will likely become part of the American vernacular for decades to come, such as AI-powered pickup-only stations with double or triple drive-thru lanes.

McDonald's new global flagship moves the company in a bold new design direction

2019-06-19T15:14:00-04:00

Though the majority of the over 37,000 McDonald's outlets around the world hardly rise to the definition of "architecture," the company is no stranger to spectacular design: some of its first locations, built throughout the Midwest as early as 1955, were remarkable demonstrations of mid-century design, typified by two large golden arches that appear to hold the structure upright.

McDonald's Global Flagship, by Ross Barney Architects

In response to the company's recent rebirth of its brand, after several attempts to appeal to a younger generation, McDonald's has recently unveiled a shockingly clean and modern design for its new global flagship in Downtown Chicago. Not only is the Ross Barney Architects-designed building an aesthetically pleasing take on the fast food chain, but it also features several innovative features, including cordless phone charging, a mini-arboretum with harvestable apple trees and 27-foot windows to keep them and the whole interior well-lit.

Interior of McD...

This McDonald's is for the bees

2019-05-22T18:48:00-04:00

McDonald's, the American fast food chain central to debates on overconsumption and sustainability, has started a few notable initiatives overseas. Over the last few years, several of their restaurants in Sweden have recently installed beehives on their rooftops to accommodate the globally waning bee population, for example. A more recent initiative is the McHive, the "world's smallest McDonald's" built in a Swedish forest, according to the corporation.

Interior of McHive.

The project was overseen by creative agency NORD DDB, both as a way to advertise recent initiatives by McDonald's to consider its impact on the environment and as a genuine method of increasing and sustaining the honeybee population. The interior of the McHive is a wooden beehive fit to serve thousands of bees a day.

News cycle: August's noteworthy bicycle news

2015-08-19T14:59:00-04:00

Germany might still be a car-obsessed country, but it's starting to build an Autobahn for bikes.

From the U.S. to Germany, urban planners and major corporations are starting to purposefully design for bicycles instead of individually operated cars. In Munich, a proposed network of two-lane bike paths would radiate out from the city center to the surrounding suburbs, creating 400 miles of cyclist-only access. Meanwhile, according to WebUrbanist, international fast-food chain McDonald's has created an unfolding bicycle-oriented food transport container known as "McBike," which allows a bicyclist to visit the drive-through lane and comfortably transport a beverage and hot food home. The program was launched in Copenhagen, and may soon make its way to a Mickey Dee's near you.