Third Places
Where do we spend our time? For most people, the majority of hours in the week would be divided between two places: work and home. Wake up at home. Get ready for the day. Commute to work. Clock in. 5 or 6 o’clock rolls around. Clock out. Drive home. Have dinner. Turn on the nightly news. Or a talk show. Or the latest craze on one of one thousand different streaming platforms. Go to bed. Start the cycle over again. Wake up at home. Get ready for the day. Commute to work. Clock in. 5 or 6 o’clock rolls around. Clock out. Drive home. Have dinner. Turn on the nightly news. Or a talk show. Or the latest craze on one of one thousand different streaming platforms. Go to bed. Start the cycle over again. Etc., etc. etc.
It’s far from groundbreaking or revolutionary to say this loop is exhausting, even for those amongst us who “love our jobs.” And with the rise in remote work and work-from-home setups since the COVID-19 pandemic, for many people “work” and “home” are the same. If all of life was this “home” and “work” cycle, we’d struggle to feel connected to anybody around us. Pure isolation. And a vacation is a nice break every now and then, but how many of us can actually afford that on a regular basis? Further, vacations exist in a time set outside of day-to-day life. We exit the day-to-day to go on vacation. So, inevitably, we must return to the day-to-day. To the soul killing house, work, sleep, house, work, sleep cycle. Vacations, then, cannot be the solution to making the day to day less…miserable. There must be a facet of “real life,” not separate from it, that offers us rejuvenation.
Fortunately, there is a solution: find a third place. “Third Place” is a term coined by American sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 work The Great Good Place. The first place is the home, the second place is work, and third places are spots for voluntary and leisurely gathering outside these two spheres. A third place is “a generic designation for a great variety of public places that host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work.” Third places are a neutral ground, where people from across social strata can meet on equal ground. Strangers are always welcome, but regulars still feel at home. They are lively, filled with conversation and good humor. While there might be an option to purchase goods, such as at bars, cafés, and barber shops, it is not strictly necessary, like at libraries and church halls. Third places are casual zones for “free assembly.” They are essential to sustaining and building community. They are also central to grass roots efforts, riling up support for big changes, and overcoming political divides.
Likely, many of you have already been going to third places. Getting a drink with friends. Chatting with a cup of (oftentimes poorly made) black coffee in the basement of religious buildings after service. Talking with other parents in the children’s section of the library. Lunching in the park. Now, you have a word for it. Now, you can reflect on just how crucial these spaces are. And now, we all can be intentional about finding, building, and sustaining these third places. For the architects and builders amongst us, we need to be thoughtful in how we design these places. And for the rest of us, we need to consistently and actively support them. They are essential both to our individual mental health and the health of our communities.
It’s far from groundbreaking or revolutionary to say this loop is exhausting, even for those amongst us who “love our jobs.” And with the rise in remote work and work-from-home setups since the COVID-19 pandemic, for many people “work” and “home” are the same. If all of life was this “home” and “work” cycle, we’d struggle to feel connected to anybody around us. Pure isolation. And a vacation is a nice break every now and then, but how many of us can actually afford that on a regular basis? Further, vacations exist in a time set outside of day-to-day life. We exit the day-to-day to go on vacation. So, inevitably, we must return to the day-to-day. To the soul killing house, work, sleep, house, work, sleep cycle. Vacations, then, cannot be the solution to making the day to day less…miserable. There must be a facet of “real life,” not separate from it, that offers us rejuvenation.
Fortunately, there is a solution: find a third place. “Third Place” is a term coined by American sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 work The Great Good Place. The first place is the home, the second place is work, and third places are spots for voluntary and leisurely gathering outside these two spheres. A third place is “a generic designation for a great variety of public places that host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work.” Third places are a neutral ground, where people from across social strata can meet on equal ground. Strangers are always welcome, but regulars still feel at home. They are lively, filled with conversation and good humor. While there might be an option to purchase goods, such as at bars, cafés, and barber shops, it is not strictly necessary, like at libraries and church halls. Third places are casual zones for “free assembly.” They are essential to sustaining and building community. They are also central to grass roots efforts, riling up support for big changes, and overcoming political divides.
Likely, many of you have already been going to third places. Getting a drink with friends. Chatting with a cup of (oftentimes poorly made) black coffee in the basement of religious buildings after service. Talking with other parents in the children’s section of the library. Lunching in the park. Now, you have a word for it. Now, you can reflect on just how crucial these spaces are. And now, we all can be intentional about finding, building, and sustaining these third places. For the architects and builders amongst us, we need to be thoughtful in how we design these places. And for the rest of us, we need to consistently and actively support them. They are essential both to our individual mental health and the health of our communities.
