McDonald’s has enlisted a leading French architect Patrick Norguet to create a radically different design for its restaurants.

The first of the new concept is now open in Villefranche-de-Lauragais, about 40km from Toulousse, with six more restaurants about to adopt the new look.

Norguet, charged with leading the design of a new architectural identity for the chain’s French network, has taken the fast food brand back to its roots – as a family restaurant experience. McDonald’s started out as a family fast food destination, but in recent years it has assumed a more adolescent and urban tone.

As the photos show, the result adopts some of the initiatives of the global move away from fixed chairs and harsh colours into more of a relaxing, tonal environment with more subtle branding, restful colour schemes and modern technical functionality.

The design makes a lot of use of materials such as plywood, sheet metal and concrete.

The ceramic floor, designed by Patrick Norguet for supplier Lea Ceramica, uses huge, ultra-slim two metre slabs to break the usual visual conventions, creating a warm and graphic feel without using carpet.

Norguet has adopted an organic feel to the store with a plant metaphor. Different parts of the restaurant branch out within the restaurant to create areas, functions and moods for different social requirements – groups meeting together, solos after a quick coffee or catching up with work online, or families relaxing over a meal.

“Organic and functional furniture/architecture” creates places to stand up to eat for lone teenagers, alcoves for family table service, a unique initiative at McDonald’s. Terminals scattered about the restaurant allow a mother to settle a child, order on a touch screen and wait for the meal to be delivered by a McDonald’s employee.

The colour scheme is also radically different to the past French experience. Patrick Norguet’s design uses contemporary white which he contrasts with fun colours.

Information courtesy of: Ross, Kritiana . “McDonald’s Interiors in France / Patrick Norguet” 03 Jan 2012. ArchDaily.