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A place to call our
Discover a concept that brings good results to chains like Starbucks and Bacio di Latte.
Our life is marked by the places we pass through, by the reflection of the roles that those places played in it.
As babies, our home was the whole world.
As we grow up, we incorporate other places into our daily lives.
First we go to daycare and school, then to extracurricular and vocational courses, until we enter the world of work.
Many people refer to the university where they studied as Alma Mater, which in Latin means caring mother, symbolizing the importance that place had for their lives.
1st - The house is the main place, it is the basis for living, hence its title of First Place, something like the most important space.
2nd - Then we have work, where we carry out professional activities that support living, being the Second Place or the second most important space.
3rd - Both at home and at work there is interaction with other people, but as relatives and co-workers we don't choose, we lack a place to live with the people we can choose, which would be our Third Place.
As in the song Food, from the Titans:
We don't just want to eat
We want pleasure
To ease the pain
We don't want
Just money
We want money
And happiness
In the search for pleasure and happiness, we look for people with whom we can establish relationships of love and friendship.
Where is it possible to meet and live with these people?
You should think about the various places where these meetings take place, bars, churches, gyms, bookstores, cafés, clubs, parks, ice cream shops, squares, tobacco shops, restaurants.
A bar, a café or an ice cream parlor are not in themselves a place for meetings and socializing, they must promote meetings and conviviality.
A gym can be a great meeting place for health and well-being-oriented people, but not all of them are.
The fit-gym format, for example, favors exercise to the detriment of socializing, without a space where interaction is valued.
Not serialized Friends there was one place where everyone met unagreed, it was Central Perk, almost a character in the fun series.
The characters in the series Seinfeld they made the neighborhood restaurant an extension of their homes.
Before Seinfeld and Friends, there was the series Cheers, which in Portugal was called That Bar, because everything took place in a bar where the local community met to talk about life.
It lasted 11 seasons, making it one of the longest series in the history of television, and it also gave rise to the famous series Frasier.
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came
Sometimes we want to go
To the places where everyone knows our name
And they're always happy we went
The concept of Third Place
Created by the sociologist Ray Odenburg in 1989, emphasizes the importance of spaces focused on personal expression, exchange of ideas, flirts, and friendships as a central part of human life.
It was assimilated by urban planning scholars, who used the concept to point out social problems caused by the structure of cities focused entirely on home-work-home.
The concept was used to criticize zoning rules that prohibited the existence of commercial activities in residential areas, creating dead zones in terms of social interaction.
While in other areas, essentially commercial, there are bars, bookstores and gyms, without neighboring communities that can make them their Third Places.
The traditional Pubs (Public Houses), who concentrate diverse roles in their communities, receiving mail, offering hot meals, and even overnight stays, are a great example of a Third Place.
“Starbucks stores have always been known as the 'third place', a cozy place outside of our home and work where we connect over a cup of coffee”
Since everyone holds such a place in their hearts, it's easy to agree on its importance.
The renewed role of Third Places
In the context of the new economic geographies accelerated by the pandemic, neighborhoods are growing in importance compared to shopping centers.
More people working in Home office, assigning more roles to the house, which now functions as First and Second Place, further increasing the demand for a Third Place that is a relief compared to the first two.
Growing projects of Coliving, which integrate the First Place (Home) with the Third Place (Social), or Coworking, which integrate the Second Place (Work) with the Third Place (Social).
Even Shopping Centers, which have always had an essentially commercial function, now seek integration with work and living spaces in a multipurpose format to assume a Third Place role.
The ability to retain customers is the great strength that the concept can bring to a business that has the necessary elements to be a Third Place.
Forget the expression table turn or lounge turn, which is the intention to serve different customers over a lunch or dinner break.
Third Parties don't expect the customer to go in and out, on the contrary, they expect them to enter, interact and stay, this may even be more profitable.
The new consumer profile
Smaller family structures, with more adults without children, take the focus away from the home, freeing people up for activities and interactions.
If before the consumer could even prefer quick service, so that they could return home or work, now we see the search for immersion spaces that are interesting in themselves.
Couples without children and people living alone have more disposable income for their own consumption, valuing enriching experiences, despite higher prices.
Interesting people attract interesting people, which is why Third Places attract this audience and profit from it, leaving people in a hurry and disinterested to other places.
Even so, it is important to remember that this demand for Third Places is more concentrated in some regions than in others where the family or professional profile is stronger.
Information from Residents by Household and Population by Age, offered by Mapfry in its Public plan, allow a clear distinction between these places.
Also read the article Cohabitation Retail, full of tips for your business to interact with the community.
