Blueprint of McDonaldland

As night falls in Kowoon, 24-hour McDonalds’ turn into temporary hostels, giving refuge to thousands of the city’s homeless in Hong Kong. They are called McRefugees. The McAlley Handbook Project gives an account of this complex socio-economic and spatial phenomena and investigates new possibilities for short term living in Hong Kong.

Giving an account to the McRefugee Crisis, the project investigates new possibilities for short term living in Hong Kong. As part of the analysis, we meticulously recorded local instances of domestic use within public spaces(such as the spatial appropriation of public spaces by Filipino servants) and extracted new spatial standards for private and collective living.\nThe design transforms the back alleys in Kowloon district into mixed-use residential and commercial complexes, giving a home to the McAlley community. The proposed architectural system(recycled construction materials such as bamboo members from scaffolding) and programmatic formula allow creating an infrastructure applicable within most typical urban blocks. Builds on the particulars of the alleys, the ground and first levels are occupied by food markets, small shops and extensions of the ground floor restaurants providing semi-outdoor seating areas, while these levels on existing towers that open to the alley are occupied by commercial functions. The McAlley residential units start from the 2nd floor, where the existing towers set back allowing more air and light to penetrate the alley as the void opens up. The setback platforms will be the location of the stacked residential rows and the communal spaces(shared laundries, shrines, post-boxes, etc) as a connection between the permanent communities of the tower and the temporary residents of McAlley.\nThe entire McAlley’s infrastructure, plumbing, electricity and circulation to certain extent depends on the “host” towers exploiting the condition whereby the entire plumbing system of residential towers are external on rare façade. While this creates a parasitical relationship between the McAlley complex and the existing tower, programmatically and economically the architectural relationship is more symbiotic.\nThe McAlley Handbooks are the inventory of the modulars, material details, devices and programs attempting to optimize different degrees of sociability. All in pursuit of finding the formula for dignified collective living in 2019 Hong Kong.