A Typology of Places in the Knowledge Economy: Towards the Fourth Place

Abstract

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Coworking space as a third-fourth place: changing models of a hybrid space in corporate real estate

“…With coffee shops likely picking up a large percentage of the remaining 42 per cent, the statistical data point to the shift from the home-office to third places. As Oldenburg noted in 1989 and Morisson (2018) recently elaborated upon, coffee shops have acted as both a social “third place,” solving the issue of social isolation and a social-working “second-third place,” solving the issue of distractions at home. This has caused both conflicts, as coffee shops try to manage the number of times workers take up tables from paying customers and humor, as pop culture notes the modern-day trope of a café full of laptops.…”

“…The term “third place” was coined by R. Oldenburg in 1989 “to describe places out of the home and the office where people use to convene and socialize in a free, informal manner” (Moriset, 2013). Indeed, with the changes occurring to the way we work and live, due in part to the emergence of coworking spaces as an alternative place, some have suggested that they are not “third places” at all, but rather a hybrid “second-third place” intended for a new way of working and sharing knowledge, as contrasted with a new way of socializing (Morisson, 2018). The popularity of coworking as a model of successful second-third place has also led to re-emergence of shared living and working spaces, which were explored within the American counterculture movement of the 1960s, now re-branded as hip and modern “fourth places” for young digital nomads and knowledge workers (Morisson, 2018).…”

Coworking as a model for conscious business

“…While the importance of peer production as open collaborative innovation and co-creation has often been noted in online cooperation (Benkler et al, 2015), it has often been overlooked in psychical spaces that promote early forms of cooperation (Waters-Lynch and Potts, 2017). Some scholars thus propose the idea of fourth place, the hybridized form of other three places that spotlight the momentousness of social interactions, network creation, spatial dimension and development of tactic knowledge between users that work on individualized basis (Morisson, 2018). Coworking places are typically designed as new working ecosystems aimed at assisting self-employed workers in restoring and balancing the boundaries between work and their private lives (Ross and Ressia, 2015).…”

Observing people working as fieldwork: methodological notes on ethnography in postindustrial coworking spaces

“…La mayoría de la literatura sobre el tema ha sido escrita en la segunda mitad de la década de 2010 (Rus & Orel, 2015;Gandini, 2015;Waters-Lynch, 2016;Morisson, 2018), mostrando la actualidad del fenómeno. El texto poco menos que fundacional de Merkel (2015) es un primer intento crítico para comprender qué sucede realmente en estos espacios.…”