Commercial, Sustainable, Landscape

McDonald's Global Flagship at Walt Disney World

Lake Buena Vista, Florida | Completed 2020
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The McDonald’s Flag­ship — Dis­ney aims to become the world’s first Net Zero Ener­gy quick ser­vice restau­rant and in doing so rep­re­sents McDonald’s com­mit­ment to build­ing a bet­ter future.

Under a shed clad in solar pan­els, the restau­rant is a sus­tain­able and healthy response to the Flori­da cli­mate. Tak­ing advan­tage of the humid sub­trop­i­cal cli­mate, the build­ing is nat­u­ral­ly ven­ti­lat­ed ~65% of the year. Jalousie win­dows, oper­at­ed by out­door humid­i­ty and tem­per­a­ture sen­sors, close auto­mat­i­cal­ly when air-con­di­tion­ing is required. An out­door ​“porch” fea­tures wood lou­vered walls and fans to cre­ate an exten­sion of the indoor din­ing room. 

As an ener­gy inten­sive build­ing typol­o­gy and arguably an enabler of auto­mo­bile cul­ture, the McDonald’s Flag­ship – Dis­ney explores its role as a sus­tain­able stew­ard and learn­ing lab for scal­able tech­nol­o­gy; rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing an indus­try to be more thought­ful, strate­gic, and impactful.

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Sur­round­ed by wet­lands that com­prise most of the Walt Dis­ney World Resort prop­er­ty, the Flag­ship is a sen­si­tive stew­ard of its con­text; futur­is­tic yet contextual.

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The Flag­ship lever­aged the exist­ing build­ing and site orga­ni­za­tion to speed con­struc­tion and pre­serve resources. A major­i­ty of the exte­ri­or wall sys­tem were orig­i­nal to the 1998 build­ing and rough­ly 2,700 sqft of core struc­tur­al ele­ments in the kitchen and restrooms were preserved. 

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Fast food restau­rants are one of the high­est medi­an ener­gy use mar­ket sec­tors. The new build­ing has a 35% decrease in ener­gy use.

Con­sump­tion is off­set by on-site renew­able ener­gy, which includes stan­dard pho­to­voltaics, build­ing inte­grat­ed pho­to­voltaics, and off-the-grid park­ing lot lights. To date the build­ing is track­ing close­ly to pro­jec­tions and with com­mis­sion­ing is being fur­ther refined to out per­form expectations.

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Ear­ly stud­ies found that 65% of the year was con­sid­ered com­fort­able in the shade based on tem­per­a­ture, humid­i­ty, and airflow.

Respond­ing to this data, the din­ing room façade fea­tures jalousie win­dows that auto­mat­i­cal­ly open and close through­out the day. Sen­sors track humid­i­ty and tem­per­a­ture, assur­ing that indoor envi­ron­ments are comfortable.

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The ​“net-zero flag­ship McDonald’s at (Walt) Dis­ney World is a feat of cli­mate-respon­sive efficiency”

 Matt Hickman, The Architect's Newspaper
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The build­ing re-intro­duces an indoor / out­door rela­tion­ship unique to Florida’s ver­nac­u­lar archi­tec­ture. An exten­sive out­door ​“porch” takes inspi­ra­tion from lanais and fea­tures wood lou­vered walls, a BiPV sky­light sys­tem for shade, fans, and seat­ing that is encour­ages vis­i­tors to stay a while.

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A robust edu­ca­tion strat­e­gy was a goal of the project from the begin­ning. The archi­tec­ture itself becomes a nar­ra­tive tool in addi­tion to inte­ri­or graph­ics, inter­ac­tive video con­tent, and gam­ing unique to this loca­tion. The restau­rant teach­es vis­i­tors of all ages to be more ded­i­cat­ed envi­ron­men­tal stewards.

In a con­text dom­i­nat­ed by the auto­mo­bile, the design team focused on cre­at­ing an oasis. Sur­round­ed pri­mar­i­ly by Flori­da native plants, the site springs to life with col­or and bio­di­ver­si­ty. Near­ly 1,800 square feet of the façade fea­tures an irri­gat­ed green wall; improv­ing insu­la­tion val­ue and clean­ing the micro-climate.

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