Architect and workplace thought leader Hana Kassem and renowned cultural anthropologist Melissa Fisher explore how using ethnographic insights can inform workplace design and enable the integration of ‘third places’ into the workplace to foster social cohesion and community.
At the turn of the 20th century, the Parisian café served as more than a place to drink coffee—it was a crucible for intellectual and cultural exchange. Artists, writers, and philosophers gathered regularly, shaping the foundational ideas of modern cultural movements. While American cities today boast a dense proliferation of coffee shops, these spaces rarely foster community in the same way. Chain cafes often serve as anonymous workspaces where individuals operate “alone together”—a term used to describe the modern duality of social disconnection coupled with physical gathering.
By contrast, true “Third Places” are unique, character-rich environments frequented by regulars who interact meaningfully together and who shape and are shaped by the space. These are memorable, social spaces—“sticky places”—that cultivate belonging, where the collective identity of patrons becomes entangled with the physical environment itself.
Third Places vs. Third Spaces
The pandemic underscored our fundamental need for in-person social interaction and reinvigorated attention to what sociologist Ray Oldenburg called “third places”: public spaces outside of home and work that foster community, such as cafes, bars, and community centers.
Though often used interchangeably, “third place” and “third space” have distinct meanings. Cultural theorist Homi Bhabha’s concept of “third space” refers to a figurative or conceptual zone—a space between cultures where hybrid identities emerge.
Unlike third places, which are grounded in physical environments, third spaces emphasize ideas, relationships, and the potential for cultural transformation.
Yet, these ideas are not mutually exclusive. Physical places can catalyze third-space states of being. Certain spatial qualities impact how we think, interact, and feel. As such, the architecture of third places contributes to shaping culture itself. Social relationships are tethered to environments, and everyday interactions reinforce or reimagine the meanings of those spaces.
In this context, many workplaces, especially in the white-collar and tech sectors, have integrated third places into the office. The goal is to promote cohesion, retain talent, improve performance and foster a sense of belonging among employees. These environments encourage a shared identity formed through embodied interaction with place. However, the optimal design of such spaces remains an open and under-explored area.
Some explorations to uncover people’s response to certain qualities of spaces have been undertaken by environmental psychologists and neuroscientists such as Anjan Chatterjee, a pioneer in neuroaesthetics – the nascent field that bridges neuroscience, art and architecture. His research has identified three characteristics of space that seem to promote a sense of belonging: coherence, fascination, “hominess”. Designing spaces with these terms in mind could provide a useful roadmap towards achieving resonant third places (Kassem 2024).
Bringing Cultural Anthropology into Workplace Design
To design truly effective third places in the office, particularly in an era of hybrid work, we propose integrating anthropological methods—especially ethnography—into architectural thinking. Ethnography helps us understand how physical spaces support social life, cultural identity, and emotional connection.
During the pandemic, digital technology accelerated the decoupling of place from work. Yet ethnographic studies reveal that physical environments remain essential to human connection. For instance, sociologist Eric Klinenberg’s work on public libraries positions them as vital social infrastructure (Klinenberg 2019). They serve not merely as repositories of books, but as hubs for building trust across divides—an insight with clear implications for workplace design.
Similarly, David Grazian’s fieldwork on coworking spaces highlights their value as social arenas for freelancers and telecommuters. These environments provide not only amenities but also the intangible benefits of proximity, collaboration, and spontaneous exchange—what Grazian calls “the sensory pleasures of social effervescence” (Grazian 2019: 11).
Comfortable seating, flexible layouts, and furnishing choices that allow adjustments can help re-create such qualities within office-based third places. Seemingly minor elements—like a couch, which is a direct transposition of “home” in the workplace, blending and blurring of home and workplaces (Danvers and Wells, 2025), can symbolize a shift in power dynamics, creating a sense of psychological safety and dismantling hierarchical barriers.
The less formal interactions between employees that can occur in third places highlight a phenomenon that sociologist Erving Goffman (1959) astutely observed: the physical environment – the layout, furniture, and aesthetics of space shapes human behavior. The design of a space can enable its occupants to express ideas and feelings that might otherwise remain unspoken.
The Role of Ethnographic Fieldwork
Place-based ethnographic research enables us to observe how people interact with and adapt spaces throughout their day. This offers architects vital insight into designing malleable environments that support individual cognitive rhythms, social needs, and moments of retreat or engagement.
We argue that no single environment, no matter how well designed, can meet the evolving needs of all employees throughout the day.
People require spatial variation to support mental focus, rest, and socialization. Carefully crafted third places, offered in a range of scales – from spaces for one, to spaces for five people or a gathering of 50 people – can provide such changes of state; these are enabled through modifiable lighting, movable seating arrangements, calibrated choices of materials, and individually controlled thermal comfort.
By interviewing, as well as “shadowing” individuals and user groups, and observing how they use space, ethnography becomes a tool for responsive, human-centered design. These insights inform choices about texture, formality, acoustics, comfort, the use of raw natural materials versus highly finished manufactured ones, the use of color, pattern, texture, and other experiential variables that shape the quality of workplace life.
Positive Friction and Contact Zones
Third places within the office can function as “contact zones”—a concept we adapt from literary scholar Mary Louise Pratt (1991). These are spaces where different cultures, roles, or departments meet, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes productively. Drawing on anthropologist Anna Tsing’s (2004) concept of friction, we refer to this as “positive friction”: the unplanned collisions that lead to unexpected collaboration, camaraderie, and creativity. These zones of positive friction can easily pivot from spaces for socializing to spaces for impromptu collaboration. While the two modalities are not one and the same, there is an inherent casual flexibility that permeates the spaces in which they take place. These moments benefit not just the individuals involved but the broader organizational culture. When third places are internal to the office, the ripple effects of bonding and exchange reinforce belonging and morale. If these interactions occur elsewhere, the organization loses their collateral impact – the effect on those around cannot be leveraged.
Between the Office and the City
Third places are where one finds community — and companies increasingly seek to cultivate that sense of belonging within their walls. When successful, these spaces create bonds that are inextricably tied to the culture and environment of the organization.
But as we advance this model, we must remain wary of over-internalizing third places into private workplaces. If the only condoned space for socialization becomes the office, we risk diminishing the urban fabric that provides the serendipitous, public encounters which breathe life into cities.
We close with a provocation: have we cannibalized the canonic Café des Ambassadeurs? In drawing third places into corporate or institutional life, are we weakening their effectiveness in providing relief through non-hierarchical interactions and furthermore, their contributions to civic life?
Instead, we advocate for a new form of urbanism: one that situates third places at the porous boundaries between public and private, between work and world. These spaces can serve both the company and the city, weaving together social connectivity, cultural relevance, and place-based identity.
By anchoring design in ethnographic insight and human experience, we can create third places that not only support office culture but enrich the civic life beyond its walls.
All imagery courtesy of Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates
Want More Insights from Melissa Fisher & Hana Kassem?
Read: Workplace Redux: An Anthropological Approach to Today’s Workplace Design HERE
Sources:
Bhabha, Homi K. (1994). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor.
Grazian, David. (2019). Thank God It’s Monday: Manhattan Coworking Spaces in the New Economy. Theory and Society, Springer.
Kassem, Hana. (2024). Resonance: Mind and Matter in Architecture. The Plan Magazine.
Klinenberg, Eric. (2019). Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life. Crown.
Oldenburg, Ray. (1989). The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You Through the Day. New York: Paragon House.
Oldenburg, Ray. (2001). Celebrating The Third Place: Inspiring Stories about the “Great Good Places” at the Heart of our Communities. Marlow & Company, New York.
Pratt, Mary Louise. (1991). “Arts of the Contact Zone.” Profession, 33-40.
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. (2005). Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton University Press.
Weinberger, Adam B., Christensen, Alexander P., Coburn, Alexander, & Chatterjee, Anjan. (2021). Psychological responses to buildings and natural landscapes. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 77, 101676. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2021.101676.
