Third Places: How Shared Spaces Can Connect

The prehistoric Stonehenge monument and other archaeological sites offer ample evidence of human  civilization’s enduring need for communal gathering spaces, those places where people  can come  together for celebration, ritual, and the mundane (1). These places are what sociologist Ray Oldenburg  coined third places (2)—places unlike the private, informal home and the public, formal workplace,  being both informal and public. These are places where people gather and socialize deliberately or casually (3): meet friends, cheer for the home team with fellow fans, or just sit to  people-watch. Third places are defined by their “ordinariness”(4)  and allow people to meet, relax, play, and just be, with minimal cost to themselves (5). Third places have been shown to strengthen social capital (6), foster social connection (7), and boost diversity (8)  and well-being (9). They also serve as “enabling places” (10)  that promote recovery from mental illness by providing social and material resources (11).

The social interactions that occur in these spaces can provide opportunities for making and sustaining bonds, offer relief from daily stresses, support a sense of community, and facilitate tolerance between diverse people (12). Research also shows that the social support (i.e., emotional support, companionship) that people get in third places may match their deficit of social support elsewhere (13). In light of this evidence, as loneliness is on the rise (14), the need for third places is greater than ever. Yet across the nation, third places are closing (15), fraying the ties that hold communities together. To create places that connect us, we need policymakers, entrepreneurs, developers, city planners, architects, and, most of all, citizens to advocate for the importance of cultivating these spaces, which provide a buffer from the physical and psychological stresses of modern day. Although third places have traditionally been studied and understood as standalone brick-and- mortar spaces, this report makes the case that they also exist as small, semi-public spaces within larger buildings or areas—for example, the office kitchen, or the communal space in a long-term inpatient unit, or the shared interior courtyard of a large building. These places can be small- to large- scale: office watering coolers, local coffee shops, corner markets, daycares, community centers, city parks, and street blocks (16). Some have argued that virtual worlds can serve as “fourth places” or a type of digital third place; however, there is little evidence that virtual places can fill the real- world physical needs for connection, community, leisure, and support that third places do. This report, a semi-structured literature review, identifies universal guidelines to design spaces that combat loneliness and social isolation and foster social capital and community. The guidelines to design for social health presented here are accessibility, choice, human scale, nature, sense of place, and activation. Due to the dearth of research on the design of third places to foster social health (17), the guidelines are based on peer-reviewed and published research across the spectrum of knowledge on the built environment and social health. Each section below explains these guidelines in detail, grounding the concepts in science and illustrating them with case studies. The section for each of the six guidelines lists principles for design of physical environment, programming, and policy to give you the tools to take concrete action in your community, whether you’re a resident, business owner, or government authority.

REFERENCES: 1. Ellard, 2018; 2. Oldenburg, 1999; 3. Soja, 1996; 4. Hickman, 2013; 5. Cheang, 2002; Finlay, Esposito, Kim, Gomez-Lopez, & Clarke,2019; Oldenburg, 1999; Thompson & Kent, 2014; 6. Lifszyc-Friedlander et al., 2019; 7. Klinenberg, 2018; Williams & Hipp, 2019; 8. Klinenberg, 2018; Williams & Hipp, 2019; 9. Cattell, Dines, Gesler, & Curtis, 2008; 10. Duff, 2012

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