Beyond the Coffeehouse: Third Places for the Modern Era

Main: Population Diversity and Inclusive Design (2022) & Minor: Green Signals (2022 & 2023)

Indirectly related trends: Health Equity and Nature (2022), Silent Health Crisis (2024), Political Polarization and Societal Division (2024), The Value of Youth (2024), Immersive City for and by the People (2024).

Due to inequitable, car-centric urban planning, Cincinnati residents lack sufficient third places that adequately cater to their social needs. As society moves towards tech-centric lifestyles, opportunities for social interaction are vanishing, creating the need for people-centric gathering spaces. 

Planning within the city of Cincinnati has created third places, but these third places are not inclusive. The places include cafes which cost money and religious institutions or museums that are not seen by all as places that they belong to or are welcome to enter.  

Successful city planning in the future requires fast-pasted and intentional design of spaces with the public rather than for the public. As traditional ‘second places’ begin to disappear, we may enter a world of only ‘first places;’ it is a planner’s responsibility to redefine ‘third places’ for the modern era.  

We envision a future for Cincinnati with third spaces designed for the people, by the people. People will use these third spaces to form diverse connections and enrich their sense of self. These spaces will be designed to promote in-person socialization, build community, and spark imagination.   

Third places are nothing without people. In reimagining third places for the modern era, we are mindful of the individuals these spaces are meant to serve and how they might interact with these places and with each other. Follow their stories throughout this project!

This chart displays the relative quality of different forms of existing third places based on how communal or individual the experience is of the place and how flexible the space is. This helps us determine which spaces need the most enhancement to become high-quality third places and which are already fairly flexible and community-oriented. When designing new third places, we will aim to make them highly communal and flexible. 

Categorizing neighborhoods based on these four criteria (population size, population density, median income, and number and quality of third places) helps us assess which communities need the most intensive and immediate attention regarding third places. This will be useful when selecting the types of third places to develop or enhance and in what order to maximize equity and connection within Cincinnati.

Communities have existing third places, even if they are low quality. Looking toward the future, we want to add new third places and enhance existing ones. The following are recommendations for how common existing third places can become more flexible, people-oriented spaces and genuine hubs for connection within communities. Libraries, museums, rec centers, parks, and strip malls are places that people use today to gather with friends and family, enrich themselves culturally, and relax outside of home and work, but they can all be improved. Malls and strip malls are also used as third places, but most of the time the space is wasted on parking and there is very little interaction with nature, so these present great opportunities for new third places. 

General recommendations for all third places (including those not specifically mentioned such as churches, bus stops, cafes, bars, and makerspaces) include:

1. Install green roofs and walls on all buildings 
2. Integrate 3rd spaces into a city-wide composting & recycling programs 

Modular third places are flexible, interchangeable units that adapt to residents' changing needs. There are three types of experiences: Social, Active, and Passive. Residents are able to choose from a catalogue of options including but not limited to those below.

• Outdoor Living Room - The "Outdoor Living Room" is a communal, welcoming space with activities that encourage social interactions, especially multigenerational ones. These can include pen pal stations, chess tables, and audio guest books.

• Innovative Seating - Fun, innovative seating solutions inspire creativity in public spaces and invite people to come together

• The Beehive - The "Beehive" is a highly innovative public space with different pockets and activities that encourage exploration (Celeste Design Studio, 2023).

• Pop-Up Garden - Pop-up gardens and forests bring greenery to urban hardscapes, improving people's mental health, promoting connection with nature, and benefitting local ecology

• Art Installations - Large-scale, interactive art installations inspire people to connect and imagine new ways to use public spaces

• Skate Park / Skating Rink - Roller skating, roller blading, skateboarding, etc. are all popular pastimes for people of all ages and backgrounds. Providing space for these activities decreases accidents elsewhere in the city and supports informal interactions

• Shipping Container Retail / Cafe - Shipping containers are a fairly simple way to create compact, high-quality spaces for cafes, retail storefronts, small restaurants, and more

• Temperature-Regulated Room - As climate change causes extreme heat and cold in cities, it is essential for residents' safety to provide places to regulate their temperature. Mobile heating and cooling centers can benefit all people and provide space to meet new people

• Reading Room - In partnership with the Cincinnati Public Library and other sources, reading rooms give people of all ages the opportunity to sit, relax, and learn while spending time in the city

• Mobile Office - Work-from-home patterns allow for greater flexibility regarding where work takes place, so why not work in public? Free mobile private and small group work spaces allow for people to work while still enjoying the outdoors and the social environment

While transportation is often thought of as just a way to access third places - a means to an end - but 2050 holds a much brighter future for public transit. We envision a public transit system that offers riders an engaging experience they cannot replicate in a personal vehicle.

We analyzed Cincinnati’s neighborhoods based on population, population density, age, race, and income. Using this information combined with our map of existing third places, we organized neighborhoods into three categories to determine which need new or enhanced third places most urgently and which have a fairly robust network already. We selected one neighborhood from each category to better understand how our ideas for third places can be integrated into different environments.

Roselawn was one of the Cincinnati railroad suburbs. It was thriving until the development of the Mill Creek Expressway in the 1940s caused white flight and disinvestment. Today, the neighborhood consists of primarily residential neighborhoods, a large industrial area, and a small neighborhood business district. Roselawn is a category 1 community and is in immediate need of more third places.

The selected site includes two strip malls, both developed in 1948. One recently underwent a redevelopment process after 2019 in response to the city declaring it a nuisance. However, the building is still made of fairly low-quality materials and the parking lot makes up the majority of the site without any landscaping or greenery.

The potential in this site lies in its size and location, and would be best served by complete redevelopment. The southernmost strip mall has a beautiful building, but could be connected better to the surrounding residential areas and provide more resources. Additionally, the site is located along the upcoming Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) route, making it a prime location for regional-scale public spaces.

As a retired resident of Roselawn, Deborah spends lots of time in her neighborhood enjoying the outdoors. When she was growing up, she would visit the shopping center to go to the beauty shop, but there was not much to do nearby afterward.

Now, she visits that same shop in its new location. Then, she visits the neighboring shops and hangs out in the plaza. Deborah loves visiting the Talking House; she shares her stories and experiences and learns from younger people as well. She is excited that her retirement is full of life and excitement.

Avery lives very near this site in West Price Hill and spends lots of time here after school in the Leafy Learning Lab. As an avid plant parent, they find great joy in learning more about growing food and other plants. Avery has a plot in the community garden, and they give the harvest to a local nonprofit Garden of Eat'n to feed their neighbors.

After working in the garden, Avery's friends meet up at the skate park, one of the modular units they voted for to occupy one of the site's modular spots.

Matthew works from home in Hyde Park, so he enjoys spending time in Owl's Nest Park during his lunch break. He loves grabbing some food from the food trucks and eating it in the outdoor living room.

When he is ahead on work, Matthew walks down the trail and stops at the discussion prompts. He enjoys seeing who else has visited and hearing their perspectives. While he has not yet met many of these people, hearing their stories has opened his eyes to the value of diversity in his city.

We envision a future for Cincinnati with third spaces designed for the people, by the people. People will use these third spaces to form diverse connections and enrich their sense of self. These spaces will be designed to promote in-person socialization, build community, and spark imagination.   

Planners are intimately aware of the rapid changes taking place in our cities everywhere, and we are responsible for preparing for those changes. As the world becomes increasingly tech-centric, third places will play a key role in preserving precious interpersonal relationships, celebrating diversity, and sparking creativity.

This plan expands the idea of third places from a concept that describes a select places in neighborhoods to an intentionally designed and programmed spatial system. The process of both improving existing third places and creating entirely new third places invites people to rethink how they interact with public spaces and furthermore what they expect from their cities.

The beauty of this third place system is that there are infinite ways that these three people who have no "reason" to meet would get to know each other. We imagine that Avery and Deborah meet at a Talking House event in Roselawn. They exchange information and become pen pals, meeting up in places around the city to swap stories and get advice.

During one of these visits, they walk on the path from Owl's Nest Park to the LeBlond Recreation Center. Here, they meet Matthew at one of the discussion prompts posted on the side of the path. They discuss their thoughts on the prompt, learning more about each other and themselves in the process.

The three people all get one of the Third Place Passports from the rec center and decide to meet once a month to explore a new place. They all feel enriched by these newfound relationships which they may never have found without the rich system of third places in Cincinnati.

 Tell us here! 

Thank you for exploring our project! We are very passionate about creating spaces where people feel safe, comfortable, creative, and empowered. We are so proud of this project, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

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