I'll have a large fries and a blind fold....

I love Big Macs.

There, I said it, it’s out there.

People seem to boast about how long it’s been since they’ve had a McDonalds, but I think the foods alright. It does the job, and in moderation a little junk food isn’t that bad. The trick is to eat a Big Mac and not think of it like a burger.

Now , obviously there are a lot of things wrong with the McDonald’s corporation, and if you fancy a quick and easy insight into what they are watch Morgan Spurlock’s ‘Supersize Me,’ (if anything it will make you go on a diet and give you an insight into our blame culture) Corporate greed aside, there is another thing which has always got on my nerves when it comes to McDonalds, and all other fast food outlets for that matter….the dysfunction they  attract.

I caught site of this McDonald’s in Paris on the ArchDaily blog a few weeks back, and found the approach to the interior design of the restaurant to be whole heartedly refreshing. I can’t say it’s to my own personal tastes, but importantly it’s different. Until you catch site of the hallowed golden arches the space has it’s own identity.

I think respect and a personal approach toward the design of a space goes a long way to the respect that people give it. Maybe I am being a little delusional, but I believe that sub-consciously we interact and respect spaces far more if it looks as though more than five minutes thought went into them. Every McDonalds of the 1990’s looked, smelled and felt the same, once you sat down inside, it was like stepping into purgatory. A void space that could be just about anywhere.  All of these spaces that didn’t have any thought or care in their design attracted the ‘youth’ of what our dear friend Mr. Cameron called broken Britain, and in turn no respect was given back, leaving the outlets  and areas around to become no go zones (particularly near where I grew up).

I thought that in the early noughties a corner was being turned, when McDonalds pledged to redevelop all it’s outlets in the UK. But, it turned out that they were just being transformed into thousands of Starbucks clones, which, to be honest is worse.

These may all appear to be fairly trivial comments, and leave you thinking, well who cares about some fast food restaurant? But, it’s the lack of care in architecture at this minor level and total pursuit of financial gain that has led high streets to become so undesirable, and more importantly so alike. The same can be said with housing in this country today. ‘Let’s just glaze over whether it’s actually any good, and just roll it out there fill the quota and make some dough,’ an attitude that has left us with some of the most horrendous looking developed city centres and housing estates around the globe.

No wonder we all shop online now.