Thinking in Public
The third space led by a creator. Local creators partner to build a coworking space or a design studio that sells coffee, and that brings the masses. Similar to how influencers sell products.
Builders can partner with local influencers to create third spaces that are based on these people.
The creator brings the people. The builder brings the space. Coffee is what keeps them there.
Sociologist Ray Oldenburg gave the idea its name in his 1989 book The Great Good Place. Home is the first place and work is the second. The third place is the public spot where people gather regularly and informally, like a cafe, a bookstore or a barbershop. Project for Public Spaces has a short profile of his work.
A new cafe has to find its crowd. A creator already has one. Picture a local woodworker with a following who partners with a builder on a studio where members rent a bench and buy coffee at the counter. The crowd shows up on day one because they came for the person. I think that is the same pull that lets influencers sell products, pointed at a room instead of a bottle.
Oldenburg's list of what makes a third place has seven traits, and Project for Public Spaces sums them up: conversation is the main activity, strangers are welcome, the mood is playful, and the regulars give the place its character. I think a creator's audience arrives with a reason to talk to each other. The builder's job is to make the room feel like home enough that they return.
Before any lease, picture the creator hosting one Saturday at an existing cafe. If the crowd comes, talks to each other and books the next one, the idea has a first customer. If it doesn't, the cost was one Saturday.
The loneliness numbers in Friends speed dating will be a thing point to the same gap: people want somewhere to go that is neither home nor work.