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Refreshing POPS

BY Sharmaine Lee Pui Fong

SUPERVISED BY Assoc. Prof. Cho Im Sik (Dr.)

STUDIO THEME EMERGING CIVIC URBANISMS: DESIGNING FOR SOCIAL IMPACT

Abstract

McDonald’s is the most familiar and easily accessible consumption space. The McRefugee phenomenon shows how McDonald’s doesn’t follow the traditional standard of a consumption space. This seems to contradict when a consumption space welcomes people that do not seem to be active consumers, leading to the question of whether there can be a new reformulation of POPS. The goal of this thesis is to see how we can extrapolate this beyond McDonald’s, by using McDonald’s as a theoretical base. Therefore, Refreshing POPS emphasises not only the economic aspects but also the social and environmental aspects with this new circular management model. This new typology of consumption space that integrates circularity could benefit socially and environmentally through spaces for city transients constructed from food waste materials, and private corporations could benefit economically from more customers and sales from the internal farm’s produce.

Supervisor Comments

Refreshing POPS questions the conventional notion of consumption space and proposes a new POPS (Privately-Owned Public Spaces) typology for city transients by embracing McDonald's McRefugee phenomenon. A comprehensive circular management model for cultivating, producing, and regenerating food waste is proposed, which supports not only the economic aspects, but also the social and environmental aspects of POPS. This resulted in a project that provides a fresh perspective on mundane, everyday urban spaces such as McDonald’s while breaking the preconceptions of what consumption space can be, how it can operate, and how one can achieve a win-win situation for all stakeholders involved.

- Assoc. Prof. Cho Im Sik (Dr.)

Sharmaine Lee Pui Fong

Sharmaine Lee Pui Fong

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Sharmaine Lee Pui Fong

Sharmaine Lee Pui Fong