The Why (Part IV): Third Spaces & Conviviality

I learned a word recently that perfectly captures how I want my life and work to be described: conviviality. In reference to a group of people, conviviality means “the enjoyment of festive society, festivity”. When I imagine how conviviality is fleshed out in our lives, I think it is directly linked to our relationship with third spaces.

Third spaces (or third places) are described as the physical environments that are not our homes (first place), or our workplaces (second place), but the other spaces we inhabit to experience community and relax. These spaces vary for different folks and communities, but they are the coffee shop, the pub, the gym, the parks and libraries that bring a sense of place to a neighborhood. Ray Oldenburn, an urban sociologist, was one of the first to describe third places in The Great Good Place. Shortly after, Robert Putnam wrote about the decline of our country’s social capital in Bowling Alone. 

We currently operate in this tension where we obsess over the nostalgia of a third place, but have made these spaces hard to build and access due to zoning codes, a lack of density, and the proliferation of cars in our towns and cities. As Americans, we love the ideas of shows like Living Single, Cheers, Friends and How I Met Your Mother because we see a tight-knit group of friends and families living overlapping lives. However, most of us continue to resort to our daily rhythms of going to work, then spending the rest of our days at home, often in a single-family house. I think this is both an issue of urban design, as well as our cultural priorities.

So, as a frequent patron and proponent of third spaces, real estate plays a central role in developing these places. This is where the seemingly disparate parts of my work and experience come together: helping real estate developers get unique spaces built, promoting them to the community, and making them come to life with events as a DJ. 

Communities small and large are finding beautiful ways to adapt historic buildings, use urban design tactics to enhance real estate developments, and make the convivial with people and connection. Approaching things in this way can be not only the project's highest and best use, but the highest and best communal use.

Let’s talk more about building great spaces in your community. I’d love to brainstorm alongside you. 

Peace, 

–Travis